I’m a coffee addict. I will occasionally give it up, but without any intention of kicking the habit. When coffee and I spend some time apart, it is for the sole intent of heightening the experience when we get back together. I worked in coffee shops – both Starbucks and independent – for years. I’ve learned a ton about coffee. Heck – I was in charge of training new employees about the ins and outs of the wonderful world of coffee. In short, I have loved the stuff for a long time, I have no intention of giving it up forever, and yes. I drink it black, no sugar.
Have you ever thought about coffee in an objective way though? It’s pretty freaking weird. Consider:
An Ethiopian goat herder is out and about one afternoon when he notices some of his goats acting … strangely. The goatherd (named Kaldi, according to legend) watches these hyper goats more carefully to try and ascertain the cause for this behavior. Soon, Kaldi discovers the only thing the jittery goats are doing differently from the others is eating the berries from this one large bush. “Well that’s odd,” thought Kaldi aloud. “I should probably tell someone about this. It seems important.”
Kaldi collected some of the berries and went to the local monastery, where he explained his suspicions to the monk. “…and they just kind of ran around like they had all the strength and energy in the world,” he exlpained.
“I see,” said the monk, clearly intrigued. “Leave these berries with me, and I will see what may be learned.”
Kaldi left the berries with the monk, glad that his story had been listened to so openmindedly. Meanwhile, the monk held one berry up to the light in his chamber. “What are you?” he posited. Rolling the berry around his palm, he considered the possibilities. Was this small red berry a gift from Above? Was it a magical fruit that would give superhuman powers to those who consumed it? Was it a test for human kind? If so, what was the lesson? He was a monk, so he decided to do one of the things monks do best: pray about it. This time though, he would pray with the aid of this gift.
The berry tasted pretty bad though, so eating it straight was less of an option for the monk than for the goats. A drink should be made from the berry. The monk steeped the berry in some hot water, making it a bit less intense. That night, he prayed. And prayed. And prayed. It seemed like he would never need to sleep again, so he continued to pray. In the morning, the monk was sure: this berry was good stuff. It was just too bad it tasted so … gross. The method of ingesting this heavenly gift would need refinement.
In the years that followed, many people experimented with cultivation, harvesting, and preparation methods. What they came up with was rather strange if you think about it. The berries are picked from the plant, the fruit allowed to rot off the seed and then cleaned away – sometimes via power washing, sometimes by mechanical methods – to leave only the green “bean” which is then roasted in an oven to varying levels of darkness (Starbucks’ French Roast is roasted to nearly the combustion point of the bean, which gives it a smoky flavor that so many people enjoy). The nearly burnt seed is then ground to (again) varying levels. The finer the grind, the longer it takes for the next step, and therefore the more extraction takes place. We java junkies then use one method or another to either force water or allow water to flow through the stuff that looks like dirt. The result is sludge (the ground up, burnt seed from a rotted berry mixed with hot water) and some really dark water. We throw the sludge away (or mix it into the compost) and cup the concoction in our hands, feeling a sense of hope and safety, and drink it. Some people add milk (which is weird in and of itself) and sugar (again … weird stuff) before enforcing our addictions.
Coffee isn’t the only weird thing we do though, as I’m sure you are well aware. Pretty much everything we do is really strange if you take the time and think about what it is we’re actually doing. Shoes for instance…. That doesn’t mean these things are necessarily bad. I believe I’ve made it explicitly clear that coffee is an integral and essential part of my very existence. I just thought this would be a way to start a miniseries of posts I’ve been mulling over during my hiatus (apparently, if I post something particularly serious or controversial, I get a bit worked up, which leads to writer’s block … who knew?).
What is the value in examining our every day practices? For one thing, I’ve found it helpful in making sure our perspective on things stays pliable. So here we go.
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and by the way, I’ve had two cups of coffee since I started writing this post. I’m gonna go build something.
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