It was when I was staying recently with the Frums in D.C. that, for a dizzying moment, I thought my life-long quest had ended. Nasa can fly us a quarter of a million miles to circumnavigate the moon but nobody has yet, to my knowledge, fixed the perennial problem of making an even half-decent cup of coffee at home.

Back to the Frum residence in Georgetown, known inside the beltway as ‘the best hotel in Washington’. It is 8.30 a.m. There is no sign of Danielle, my hostess, but David is at large on the landing, perhaps as he had heard his house guest stir.

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 ‘Coffee?’ he asked. To my amazement, he flung open some doors outside his master bedroom suite to reveal an entire separate walk-in closet complete with serried rows of glass mugs and a space-age espresso machine. Within seconds, a steaming cup of reviving black liquid with a proper crema was in my hands (I was too English to ask for hot milk, I’m ashamed to say).

Within seconds, a steaming cup of reviving black liquid with a proper crema was in my hands

Within seconds, a steaming cup of reviving black liquid with a proper crema was in my........

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