Coffee Muß Ich Haben! Leitz Summitar 50mm

For the first time in probably more than a year, we went to our favorite coffee shop in Harvard Square.  The display in the window caught my eye, and reminded me of Johann Sebastian Bach's secular cantata, BWV 211, from 1734, known as the Coffee Cantata.  His favorite librettist, Christian Friedrich Henrici, known as Picander, provided the very amusing text.
It's not so much a cantata as an an operetta, and an ode to the new coffee craze which hit Leipzig in the early 18th Century.  
The father, Schlendrian, expresses his frustration at his daughter, Liesgen, a complete coffee addict who won't listen to him.  
Having told us that she will turn into a dried-up roast goat if she doesn't have her three cups a day, she sings, 

Ah! how sweet coffee tastes,
Lovelier than a thousand kisses,
Milder than Muscatel.
Coffee!  I must have coffee!

As Liesgen sings her aria, the obligato flute's line swirls continuously around and over the vocal line: it's the steam and aroma of the coffee, -  and JSB's genius at work. 

I'm indebted to Alfred Dürr's amazing volume, The Cantatas of J. S. Bach, for the text. And here's a link to a fabulous performance for those inclined to listen.