My happiness requirements are simple. Once a year I get homemade Mother’s Day cards from my girls. Once a month I get a pedi. Once a week we spend an evening out sans-kids. Once a day, I have a good coffee, than another.
I’m not gonna lie, the only non-negotiable is the last one. The whole family structure would crumble without my two morning mugs of happy magic. Consider it the foundation of my life, and you wouldn’t be far off.
Every coffee drinker can tell you their coffee history; when they started, phases they went through, their daily work horse, and current trends they’re flirting with.
My interest in travel and coffee is a natural pairing, since travel is the only reason I started to drink coffee. I was late to the table. My first coffee from brim to bottom was in the tiny Bavarian town of Feuchtwangen (ironically meaning, moist cheeks). We were visiting relatives in Germany, and my host proudly served me a small strong cup of coffee. There was no polite way to refuse, so I loaded it up with sugar, and gulped it down. My host was so pleased that she quickly poured me another. That was the rocky start to a now thriving relationship.
Coffee in complex, even alone in its solitary cup. An avid coffee drinkers understands this. But try unfamiliar beans and methods of roasting, brewing, and flavoring around the world and it starts getting even more complicated. Pair your new java discovery with delightfully mysterious pastries and nibblies, and it just got more interesting. Sit with others in the far flung cafes of the world, and learn new coffee customs from new people, their ways of connecting through coffee. Now you have a complexity that can hold my attention for a long time.
The only thing better than making up for lost coffee time, is doing so in the cafes of other countries. Some cultures are highly coffee-developed while others somehow seem to survive without it. So grab a fresh cup and pull up a hammock–let’s see what’s out there brewing in the coffee corners of the world.