To his everlasting irritation, coffee was their choicest trade item. Worse yet, it wasn’t even coffee per se, but the aroma of coffee. Sofia would brew some of her awful damn Turkish mud and Manuzhai would hold the cup in her hands, breathe the fragrance in and then pass it around to other guests. When the coffee cooled off, they’d hand it back to Sofia, who’d drink the wretched stuff. The Jesuit party could pay for almost anything by sharing a cup of coffee with someone.
