Post by pup on Jul 1, 2006 2:23:35 GMT -5
Brewed from black wine beans grows primarily in Thentis, this drink is rather expensive due to limited trading of the product.
This drink is served hot and is very similar to Earth coffee though is much stronger.
Normally served with sugars and creams.
If served 'second slave' it is served black with no sweeteners.
On the tray, too was the metal vessel which had contained the black wine, steaming and bitter, from far Thentis, famed for its tarn flocks, the small yellow-enameled cups from which we had drunk the black wine, its spoons and sugars, a tiny bowl of mint sticks and the softened, dampened cloths on which we had wiped our fingers.
Explorers of Gor, page 10
On Second Slave:
"'Second slave,' I told her, which, among the river towns, and in certain cities, particularly in the north, is a way of indicating that I would take the black wine without creams or sugars, and as it came from the pouring vessel, which, of course, in these areas, is handled by the "second slave," the first slave being the girl who puts down the cups, takes the orders and sees that the beverage is prepared according to the preferences of the one who is being served.....The expression "second slave," incidentally, serves to indicate that one does not wish creams or sugars with one's black wine, even if only one girl is serving."
Guardsman of Gor, page 244-245
On Value:
"I grinned, and washed down the eggs with a swig of hot black wine, prepared from the beans grown upon the slopes of the Thentis mountains. This black wine is quite expensive. Men have been slain on Gor for attempting to smuggle the beans out of the Thentian territories."
Beasts of Gor, page 21
On Flavour and strength:
"I lifted the tiny silver cup to my lips and took a drop of the black wine. It's strength and bitterness are such that it is normally drunk in such a manner, usually only a drop or a few drops at a time. Commonly, too, it is mollified with creams and sugars. I drank it without creams and sugars, perhaps, for I had been accustomed, on Earth, to drinking coffee in such a manner, and the black wine of Gor is clearly coffee, or closely akin to coffee. Considering its bitterness, however, if I had not been drinking such a tiny amount, and so slowly, scarcely wetting my lips, I too, would surely have had recourse to the tasty, gentling additives with which it is almost invariably served."
Guardsman of Gor, page 247
"I had heard of black wine, but had never had any. It is drunk in Thentis, but I had never heard of it being much drunk in other Gorean cities...Then I picked up one of the thick, heavy clay bowls...It was extremely strong, and bitter, but it was hot, and, unmistakably, it was coffee."
page 106, Assassin of Gor
Cost:
"Thentis does not trade the beans for black wine. I have heard of a cup of black wine in Ar, some years ago, selling for a silver eighty piece. Even in Thentis black wine is used commonly only in High Caste homes...Originally, doubtless beans were brought from Earth, much as certain other seeds, and silk worms and such..."
page 107, Assassin of Gor
"From one side a slave girl...fled to him, with the tall, graceful, silvered pot containing the black wine... She (then) returned to her place with the pot of black wine."
page 88, Tribesmen of Gor
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"She carried a tray, on which were various spoons and sugars. She knelt, placing her tray upon the table. With a tiny spoon, its tip no more than a tenth of a hort in diameter, she placed four measures of white sugar, and six of yellow, in the cup; with two stirring spoons, one for the white sugar, another for the yellow, she stirred the beverage after each measure. She then held the cup to the side of her cheek, testing its temperature; Ibn Saran glanced at her; she, looking at him, timidly kissed the side of the cup and placed it before him. Then, head down, she withdrew."
page 89,Tribesmen of Gor
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"I decided I might care to taste the steaming, black wine. I lifted my finger. The girl in whose charge was the silver vessel, filled with black wine, knelt beside a tiny brazier, on which it sat, retaining its warmth... She rose swiftly to her feet. She knelt, head down, before me. She poured, carefully, the hot, black beverage into the tiny red cup... The other girl...lifted her tray of spoons and sugars. But I turned away. She was not summoned. The girls, white-skinned, were a matched set of slaves, one for the black wine, one for its sugars."
page 105, Tribesmen of Gor
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"I, grasping the pot with a rag and both hands, poured him a handled, metal tankard of the steaming black brew, coffee or black wine."
page 74,Slave Girl of Gor
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"The two slaves, their chains removed, now returned, and began to serve the black wine. The voluptuous slave of Aemilianus, whom he had not yet named, placed the tiny silver cups, on small stands, before us. The lovely little slave in bluish gauze, whom I had not yet named, holding the narrow-spouted, silver pouring vessel in a heavy cloth, to protect her hands, poured the scalding, steaming black fluid, in narrow, tiny streams, into the small cups. She poured into the cups only the amount that would be compatible with the assorted sugars and creams which the guest might desire, if any, these being added in, and stirred, if, and as, pertinent, by Aemilianus' slave, who directed the serving." "'Second slave,' I told her, which, among the river towns, and in certain cities, particularly in the north, is a way of indicating that I would take the black wine without creams or sugars, and as it came from the pouring vessel, which, of course, in these areas, is handled by the "second slave," the first slave being the girl who puts down the cups, takes the orders and sees that the beverage is prepared according to the preferences of the one who is being served." "Black wine, except in the vicinity of Thentis, where most of it is grown on the slopes of the Thentis range, is quite expensive." "The expression "second slave," incidentally, serves to indicate that one does not wish creams or sugars with one's black wine, even if only one girl is serving."
pages 244-245, Guardsman of Gor
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"I lifted the tiny silver cup to my lips and took a drop of the black wine. It's strength and bitterness are such that it is normally drunk in such a manner, usually only a drop or a few drops at a time. Commonly, too, it is mollified with creams and sugars. I drank it without creams and sugars, perhaps, for I had been accustomed, on Earth, to drinking coffee in such a manner, and the black wine of Gor is clearly coffee, or closely akin to coffee. Considering its bitterness, however, if I had not been drinking such a tiny amount, and so slowly, scarcely wetting my lips, I, too, would surely have had recourse to the tasty, gentling additives with which it is almost invariably served."
page 247, Guardsman of Gor