Gouezeri wrote:You can lead a buffalo to espresso, but you can't make it sink!
I think the correct citation is: "You can lead a buffalo to espresso, but you can't make it
sing"
This is because buffalo have a truly awful voice - in fact, there is an edict from 1306 in the kingdom of Penang (nowadays Malaysia) that specifically forbids owners of buffalos (in particular water buffalos) to let them sing, whether the buffalos had coffee or not.
I think this was in direct response to the infamous 1305 'Buffalo Choir Competition Riots', when buffalo owners decided to organise a contest of buffalo group-singing that resulted in spontaneous acts of violence and unrest across the whole of the province.
(History doesn't record whether said coffee had an impact on the tone quality of their voices, but given that the edict was a blanket ban on their singing one must assume that, for better or worst, it did not)
Au réveil, il était midi.