Taiwan appears to have a surprisingly large number of people for whom a major part of their job description is to sift dust out of coffee beans, pick through them (in extreme cases with chopsticks), roast them in batches of about a half cup each, empty them into a little jug covered with a loose cheesecloth sack that billows up as they turn a spinny thing to cool the beans down rapidly, and then sift and pick through them again. I have seen this done in at least three cafes in the past few months, which is three times more than the rest of my life till that point, not excepting the Timor Leste cafe where we were given a little presentation, with slides, on Timorese coffee before our first sip.
Pakistan’s coronavirus rate – both infection and death – keeps declining and there are no longer reports of unreigstered deaths as there were in June. Dare one hope? Perhaps; maybe the zombie country staggers on, punching itself in the face as it has since 1947.