Coffee: Life’s Like That!

In my coffee drinking journey, I have learned two things – or rules if you like: the first is, ‘drink coffee how you like it’ rather than how other’s say it should be drunk; and the second is, ‘if coffee is the base or foundation of your regular cuppa, make it the best coffee available’.

There was a motorist who lost control of his vehicle and it went careening over a cliff. Fortunately, the driver managed to escape and grab a hold of a small tree root. As the saying goes: “there are no atheists hanging precariously from a root saving them from a deadly fall”. Our newly converted motorist cried out – “God, save me…”

After a short moment a voice from heaven said, “let go of the branch and I will save you…” after assessing these words the motorist called out, “is there anyone else up there?”

No matter how much you are told about the foundation of great coffee, only when you take the leap, when you let go of that which you have known, will you ever really know what you may – or may not – be missing.

Life is like that; much of what we know is what we’ve imbibed through our senses, what we believe, and think has often come from the voices around us. It’s like clinging to a root and never knowing if we can fly.

My first experience of coffee was ‘instant coffee’ made palatable by sugar. This was coffee. If someone said it wasn’t, well I knew it was. When I discovered real beans, my world changed – coffee was no longer coffee. When I discovered specialty coffee, the beans that are grown with care, exactingly processed, roasted and then brewed, I found that coffee is not coffee until it is specialty coffee. Had I not taken the leap I would never have known. Now I will go without rather than drink bad or imitation coffee.

If we are not prepared to take the leap, to examine the thoughts and philosophies we have imbibed from a world of manipulated data (Hollywood et al?); If we willingly embrace current popular culture, ignoring the logic with which we were born and the natural wisdom made known in creation, then we will continue to drink instant coffee, or worse yet an imitation drink that has no coffee in it at all. 

People haven’t really changed; we remain fundamentally the same. History is there to learn from… unfortunately society doesn’t seem to learn from history and keeps repeating the same ideology hoping for a different outcome.

Somewhere, surrounded by five or ten corporate coffee(?) establishments, can be found one independent coffee house offering the real deal. Somewhere, surrounded by corporate-controlled algorithms is the real meaning of life. Enjoy life as it was meant to be.

The proof is in the cup. Don’t keep drinking what others offer up as ‘coffee’. Coffee, like life, is filled with rich flavors waiting to be discovered. The essence of coffee is in the bean not in how others extract it. Find the essence of coffee and life, rather than following the crowd.