When I was teenager, every evening after supper I had a cup of instant coffee while I watched TV. That was always the best cup of coffee in the day. You can never recover the tastes of yesteryear, but this week I’ve been having a cup of instant coffee after dinner, and through some alchemy, some magic that I hope never runs out, it tastes exactly the same as that coffee I had every night, sitting on my dad’s old cream-coloured leatherette La-Z-Boy recliner.