My husband recently called me out on my coffee habit. You could say it was a sort of intervention, only the focus was more financial than emotional. He asked me to come clean about my daily spending on this particular vice, and when I did, promptly informed me that we could purchase a round-trip flight to a major European capital in high season with the amount of money I blow at coffee shops annually.
But then he asked me what I get out of the coffee house experience. I agreed that I could make my own coffee but that it wouldn't be the same, and not just because of, lacking professional equipment in my kitchen, the inferior quality of the final product. There is something else I get out of going to get coffee. When I thought more about it, I realized that my daily trip to a coffee shop is actually an organizing principle in my day. It is a ritual, like going to daily Mass or zazen for solace, community, nourishment and the comfort of familiarity. The java itself is only one small part of this.
A good local coffee shop presents with all the beauty and attention to detail as a traditional spiritual sanctuary, with its characteristic coffee bean incense, its mood-altering music, its fellowship of regular worshippers, the imbibing of specially-prepared and blessed bread (biscotti) and wine (espresso) to uplift our spirits and commune with something greater than we are. In this case, that something could be the deep care that local bakers and roasters put into sourcing, preparing and serving their community. Or the warm welcome we get from our favorite cashier who knows our name and our drink. Or the friendly banter of customers making small talk in line. Or the sacred mandala of coffee art atop our foaming drink. We even tithe to the almighty tip jar as a token of our gratitude and hope for the longevity of our baristas' sacred work. More than once I've had revelatory lattes that I could swear were prepared by the seraphim in high heaven.
It turns out that coffee drinking as spiritual practice is not all that far-fetched. I was recently told about a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, not unlike a Japanese tea rite. The participant described an elaborate process in which her hostess hand-roasted green coffee beans over a fire, crushed the roasted beans with a mortar and pestle, boiled the grounds in water several times, and served it to guests in tiny cups with great care. I later read about coffee ceremonies in which frankincense resin was burned on the coals and guests were invited to inhale the scent of the roasting beans as part of the ritual. Sometimes cinnamon and cardamom are added to enrich the experience. Like many indigenous practices around the world, the coffee ceremony transforms an everyday staple into a transcendent experience.
There is also the Abyssinian legend that coffee for human consumption was first discovered by an unassuming goatherd who noticed his animals acting especially frisky after ingesting the fruit of the coffee plant. This might be a tall tale, but what is not is that people eventually figured out how to cultivate, harvest, roast and brew the berries of the coffee plant into the spunky concoction that fuels an approximate 63 gazillion percent of the business world today. This, as the story goes, somehow led to Coptic monks using coffee to stay alert while studying scripture for long hours. And that's, like, totally spiritual, right?
On a secular level, there is also luxury inherent in a complex coffee drink that ends in a vowel. The way it feels to splurge a little every day and take a few humane moments out of the modern workaday rut, which in the U.S. typically does not include a lunch hour or even a cigarette break (unless you're in international waters). The way it feels to spend on something for yourself that doesn't have any practical or lasting purpose. The way it feels to indulge a bit every day amid a lifestyle where down time happens only when someone's sick, a flight is delayed or you've finished all five seasons of Breaking Bad on Netflix.
There's even the status symbol of it all. Like a Louis-Vuitton logo bag, a to-go cup from a coffee shop signals disposable income. It shows that while I don't need this, I can afford it. I am successful because I can buy a product that I could easily make at home, albeit not as well. As anti-eco as it sounds, I have actually found myself feeling less luxurious when I bring my own travel mug for my daily grind, as though it were somehow less opulent to refill a permanent mug than to use and throw away a new disposable one. A family member who grew up in the poorest of Caribbean countries once told me that this may be a reason why it can sometimes be difficult to encourage recycling amongst people who once struggled to survive. Throwing stuff away denotes wealth. It signals that you have so much that you don't need to hang onto things. Reusing a Mason jar for iced tea can feel like poverty to those who grew up having to do that out of necessity, however boho farm-to-table charming it may seem to those who have not.
Yuppie coffee is kind of a funny concept considering I come from a city where fancy coffee drinks are actually very affordable. Café cubano may be priced like a poor man's espresso, but poor in quality it is not. Cuban coffee is a specially-roasted espresso carefully prepared for ultimate crema (the delicate, carmel-colored foam that forms atop a shot of well-made espresso) and, if you wish, perfectly-frothed milk. It is strong, sweet, satisfying and cheap. I like somewhat bitter flavors, so I order mine sin azúcar, and it is homemade mother's milk in a cup. Latino or not, in any given neighborhood in Miami, todo el mundo buys at least one coffee drink a day, most costing $1.50 or less. Many treat their entire office to a mini-shot of cortadito in the late afternoons, when human biorhythms naturally wane, for less than a bottle of Daisani. Do not for a second think that the low price heralds a diluted brew. As an Internet meme puts it, "Cuban coffee: The reason crystal meth never took off in Miami."
A friend recently asked me to name my favorite coffee shop in our Southwestern city. It depends on your drink, I told her. I have favorites for iced coffee and other favorites for breve latte. I love one place's nitrous iced coffee but can't stand their espresso. Another place has epic espresso but their latte drinks are too milky for my taste. Some places don't carry dark chocolate powder, which is an essential for sprinkling on foamy drinks, but their chai drinks are spicy not sweet the way I like them. Some places the chai and espresso are both average, but mixed together, you've got yourself a dirty chai cocktail to warm your bones all day. Then there are the chain places that are your only choices while on the road or in the suburbs. Road trips are the only time I require a shot of artificially flavored syrup to mitigate a typically less than robust brew.
Writing this, it occurs to me that the above description parallels a food travel show, where a well-heeled chef waxes poetic about how the mojitos are sublime at such-and-such club, but if you want an old-fashioned done right, you best get yourself to the little-known corner dive down the street. In fact, I've often wondered whether all the ritual and reverence around complex coffee drinks isn't for me a sort of substitution for bar culture. When I ceased my alcohol intake 20 years ago, I remember missing both the conviviality and the baroque details of drink. The red wine glasses versus the white wine glasses. The cognac snifters and champagne flutes. The dark wood camaraderie of a microbrewery next to the airy glamor of a chill lounge. I missed telling men what my drink was, and I missed the pleasure of hanging out with a bunch of strangers enjoying the simple things in life. So if I had to choose between going back to a way of life that proved disastrous for me or dropping some cash on hipster coffee drinks, I would chose the latter. Besides, a latte is still cheaper than a mojito in most places.
In spite of my best rationalizations, I have conceded that I really don't need to purchase a rich coffee drink every single day. I thought about all my favorite coffee drinks and which ones I could most authentically replicate at home. I decided on the iced toddy, a deeply flavorful concoction steeped for 24 hours cold or at room temperature. Two of my favorite coffee shops use this method, and it was easy enough to find detailed instructions via online foodie sites. My husband is helping make my own New Orleans-style Cafe du Monde cold brew with chicory, and it's pretty darn tasty. I also recently purchased both an AeroPress, which makes ecstatically authentic espresso, and an electric milk-frothing appliance, for homegrown lattes and cappuccinos, and they are actually rather awesome.
They won't completely take the place of holy communion followed by pastry in the fellowship hall. But they might reduce the frequency of my daily $4 (with tip) coffee habit enough that our family can afford to enjoy vowel-ending coffee drinks in some of the countries where they actually originated.
But then he asked me what I get out of the coffee house experience. I agreed that I could make my own coffee but that it wouldn't be the same, and not just because of, lacking professional equipment in my kitchen, the inferior quality of the final product. There is something else I get out of going to get coffee. When I thought more about it, I realized that my daily trip to a coffee shop is actually an organizing principle in my day. It is a ritual, like going to daily Mass or zazen for solace, community, nourishment and the comfort of familiarity. The java itself is only one small part of this.
A good local coffee shop presents with all the beauty and attention to detail as a traditional spiritual sanctuary, with its characteristic coffee bean incense, its mood-altering music, its fellowship of regular worshippers, the imbibing of specially-prepared and blessed bread (biscotti) and wine (espresso) to uplift our spirits and commune with something greater than we are. In this case, that something could be the deep care that local bakers and roasters put into sourcing, preparing and serving their community. Or the warm welcome we get from our favorite cashier who knows our name and our drink. Or the friendly banter of customers making small talk in line. Or the sacred mandala of coffee art atop our foaming drink. We even tithe to the almighty tip jar as a token of our gratitude and hope for the longevity of our baristas' sacred work. More than once I've had revelatory lattes that I could swear were prepared by the seraphim in high heaven.
It turns out that coffee drinking as spiritual practice is not all that far-fetched. I was recently told about a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, not unlike a Japanese tea rite. The participant described an elaborate process in which her hostess hand-roasted green coffee beans over a fire, crushed the roasted beans with a mortar and pestle, boiled the grounds in water several times, and served it to guests in tiny cups with great care. I later read about coffee ceremonies in which frankincense resin was burned on the coals and guests were invited to inhale the scent of the roasting beans as part of the ritual. Sometimes cinnamon and cardamom are added to enrich the experience. Like many indigenous practices around the world, the coffee ceremony transforms an everyday staple into a transcendent experience.
There is also the Abyssinian legend that coffee for human consumption was first discovered by an unassuming goatherd who noticed his animals acting especially frisky after ingesting the fruit of the coffee plant. This might be a tall tale, but what is not is that people eventually figured out how to cultivate, harvest, roast and brew the berries of the coffee plant into the spunky concoction that fuels an approximate 63 gazillion percent of the business world today. This, as the story goes, somehow led to Coptic monks using coffee to stay alert while studying scripture for long hours. And that's, like, totally spiritual, right?
On a secular level, there is also luxury inherent in a complex coffee drink that ends in a vowel. The way it feels to splurge a little every day and take a few humane moments out of the modern workaday rut, which in the U.S. typically does not include a lunch hour or even a cigarette break (unless you're in international waters). The way it feels to spend on something for yourself that doesn't have any practical or lasting purpose. The way it feels to indulge a bit every day amid a lifestyle where down time happens only when someone's sick, a flight is delayed or you've finished all five seasons of Breaking Bad on Netflix.
There's even the status symbol of it all. Like a Louis-Vuitton logo bag, a to-go cup from a coffee shop signals disposable income. It shows that while I don't need this, I can afford it. I am successful because I can buy a product that I could easily make at home, albeit not as well. As anti-eco as it sounds, I have actually found myself feeling less luxurious when I bring my own travel mug for my daily grind, as though it were somehow less opulent to refill a permanent mug than to use and throw away a new disposable one. A family member who grew up in the poorest of Caribbean countries once told me that this may be a reason why it can sometimes be difficult to encourage recycling amongst people who once struggled to survive. Throwing stuff away denotes wealth. It signals that you have so much that you don't need to hang onto things. Reusing a Mason jar for iced tea can feel like poverty to those who grew up having to do that out of necessity, however boho farm-to-table charming it may seem to those who have not.
Yuppie coffee is kind of a funny concept considering I come from a city where fancy coffee drinks are actually very affordable. Café cubano may be priced like a poor man's espresso, but poor in quality it is not. Cuban coffee is a specially-roasted espresso carefully prepared for ultimate crema (the delicate, carmel-colored foam that forms atop a shot of well-made espresso) and, if you wish, perfectly-frothed milk. It is strong, sweet, satisfying and cheap. I like somewhat bitter flavors, so I order mine sin azúcar, and it is homemade mother's milk in a cup. Latino or not, in any given neighborhood in Miami, todo el mundo buys at least one coffee drink a day, most costing $1.50 or less. Many treat their entire office to a mini-shot of cortadito in the late afternoons, when human biorhythms naturally wane, for less than a bottle of Daisani. Do not for a second think that the low price heralds a diluted brew. As an Internet meme puts it, "Cuban coffee: The reason crystal meth never took off in Miami."
A friend recently asked me to name my favorite coffee shop in our Southwestern city. It depends on your drink, I told her. I have favorites for iced coffee and other favorites for breve latte. I love one place's nitrous iced coffee but can't stand their espresso. Another place has epic espresso but their latte drinks are too milky for my taste. Some places don't carry dark chocolate powder, which is an essential for sprinkling on foamy drinks, but their chai drinks are spicy not sweet the way I like them. Some places the chai and espresso are both average, but mixed together, you've got yourself a dirty chai cocktail to warm your bones all day. Then there are the chain places that are your only choices while on the road or in the suburbs. Road trips are the only time I require a shot of artificially flavored syrup to mitigate a typically less than robust brew.
Writing this, it occurs to me that the above description parallels a food travel show, where a well-heeled chef waxes poetic about how the mojitos are sublime at such-and-such club, but if you want an old-fashioned done right, you best get yourself to the little-known corner dive down the street. In fact, I've often wondered whether all the ritual and reverence around complex coffee drinks isn't for me a sort of substitution for bar culture. When I ceased my alcohol intake 20 years ago, I remember missing both the conviviality and the baroque details of drink. The red wine glasses versus the white wine glasses. The cognac snifters and champagne flutes. The dark wood camaraderie of a microbrewery next to the airy glamor of a chill lounge. I missed telling men what my drink was, and I missed the pleasure of hanging out with a bunch of strangers enjoying the simple things in life. So if I had to choose between going back to a way of life that proved disastrous for me or dropping some cash on hipster coffee drinks, I would chose the latter. Besides, a latte is still cheaper than a mojito in most places.
In spite of my best rationalizations, I have conceded that I really don't need to purchase a rich coffee drink every single day. I thought about all my favorite coffee drinks and which ones I could most authentically replicate at home. I decided on the iced toddy, a deeply flavorful concoction steeped for 24 hours cold or at room temperature. Two of my favorite coffee shops use this method, and it was easy enough to find detailed instructions via online foodie sites. My husband is helping make my own New Orleans-style Cafe du Monde cold brew with chicory, and it's pretty darn tasty. I also recently purchased both an AeroPress, which makes ecstatically authentic espresso, and an electric milk-frothing appliance, for homegrown lattes and cappuccinos, and they are actually rather awesome.
They won't completely take the place of holy communion followed by pastry in the fellowship hall. But they might reduce the frequency of my daily $4 (with tip) coffee habit enough that our family can afford to enjoy vowel-ending coffee drinks in some of the countries where they actually originated.
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