I Will Judge You by Your Coffee Order
Notes of a barista-bookseller.
In the similar vein that Teaism is, as Okakura Kakuzō defines in The Book of Tea, “a cult founded on the adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of everyday existence,” Coffeeism is a cult founded on the reverence of the conscious amid the hazy passage of existence. It infuses balance and clarity, an inclination for proportion and truth, and in ephemeral moments of creative bliss, a dramatic flair to life’s bitter and darker notes.
Coffee as an art form is steeped in chemistry and craft. The artistry of coffee, from beans to brewing, requires fine manipulation of variables to produce the right balance of aroma, mouthfeel, acidity, flavour and aftertaste—the holy quintet in coffee tasting—and reach its sweet spot that satisfies the palate.
Some take it black, others with milk and sugar, or—in the case of the Coffeeist—very, very seriously. When every so often no beauty can be found in the mundane, coffee inspires divergence from the commonplace. Be it a twist on the traditional brewing ritual or a concoction of spices, flowers and fruits to blend with the season, every choice of brew is a reflection of the soul with an individuality of taste. It is, in its self-consciousness, a cup of humanity.
Coffee to the Coffeeists is like nectar to honey bees. Their colony can be spotted in coffeeshops and cafés, buzzing from contemplation, realisation and pollination of ideas. Observing from a distance, one can only guess what kinds of minds the bittersweet liquid allures and what kinds of discourses might entertain them.
Espresso and Thoughts on Art and Life
Espresso is an intense shot of coffee for the equally intense and insatiable mind who brings a renaissance of curiosity to otherwise neglected and stagnant terrains. Make it a double and it starts a revolution. Espresso: the pure, undiluted stimulation that is the soul of new inventions.
Leonardo Da Vinci’s Thoughts on Art and Life, a collection of fragments as concentrated as espresso, synthesises the rational and the spiritual, using experience and reason as a guide to study and imitate nature, wherein lies the origin of the first picture—“a single line, drawn round the shadow of a man cast by the sun on the wall.”
Affogato and Gold
Composed of a sweet snowball of gelato drowned in warm, bitter espresso, each spoonful of affogato is cold solace that burns through the layers of the self, as it fires an alchemical reaction on the tongue and kindles a gustatory transcendence, enticing the witty yet soulful minds who savour with sharpness the paradoxes of life.
Composed as leaping successions of thought like chord progressions, Rumi’s Gold is a bittersweet accompaniment to affogato that pierces through the self-imposed cage of the self and casts light into the gold mine of one’s depth, biting and consoling at the same time.
Black coffee and The Silmarillion
Many are the ventures of the spontaneous minds, as many as there are ways and paraphernalia to brew a cup of black coffee. Unfettered by consciousness, the streams of their thoughts meander, sometimes into dark and unfathomable waters. Black coffee is a spell to weave through them in slow motion, one sip at a time.
Whether it started with a map (or a nap?) or the construction of a new language all together, Tolkien’s lore of Middle Earth, densely composed in The Silmarillion, is a testament to an admirably deep rooted and relentless passion for that which is far too little in the world (at least, that which is accessible to one) for one’s appetite.
Café latte and Narrow Road to a Far Province
Espresso with milk has a creamy, silky sweetness that blankets the bitter and tart notes of coffee, morphing its flavours with the seasons as do the lovers of café latte. From a warm coat of tobacco and spice to a vibrant sprinkle of berries and nuts, their complex personalities, shifting ever so subtly like chameleons, bring out delightful undertones from the bleakest of atmospheres.
Snuggling up with a café latte, one ought to have a calm and collected companion, such as Basho’s Narrow Road to a Far Province. How quietly the sketch of a long-past poetic peregrination draws the mind into peaceful sojourns in the hinterland, like seasons unfolding.
Between petal folds and the sigh of autumn winds, an osprey’s wingbeat!
Camo latte and Earthlings
Camo latte is a combination of espresso and matcha that creates, unlike any other, a smooth, earthy, umami bitterness of two worlds, belonging to neither the coffee nor the tea cult but to its own. Double-charged with caffeine, it acts as energy ammo for the social camouflagers, the misfits, the offbeats, the round pegs in the square holes who make their own way, unseen in the world.
On the scale of quirkiness, Sayaka Murata’s Earthlings would be an outlier. Its playful critique of societal norms and pressures for conformity comes with a garnish of the uncanny and macabre gradually pervading, fracturing the line dividing human and alien until it becomes unsettling to settle in the unsettling.
Lemon shakerato and The Master and Margarita
Espresso shaken with lemonade on ice forms a mixture of enchantment and peculiar taste. Seemingly elegant, lemon shakerato nonetheless contains the boisterousness and effervescence of youth, as in those who stir up mischief once in a while and when life gives them lemons, make something even better than lemonade.
While relishing the bitter tanginess of it, add a tinge of satire from the imaginings of Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita; which remains, traversing beyond its time and place, a symbol of resistance against state repression and censorship. Its existence alone is evidence that there are many ways to murder a writer but as Woland says, “Manuscripts don’t burn.”
Nitro cold brew and White Nights
A dreamer’s muse, nitro cold brew seeps into the mind’s reverie, as nitrogen bubbles up in a mesmerising cascading gradient like tiny sand dunes in a glass and a frothy layer forms on the top giving a sweet, velvety first sip. To the dreamer, the notion of coffee barrels and a cold tap offering never-ending brews of this happiness reproduces long after the aftertaste, a sense of falling in love.
Let the cold brew caress the rim of imagination as Dostoevsky’s White Nights carries it away with the sweet ache of a love so short-lived, so tender and forlorn, contagious in its joy and sadness.
 | A guest post by
|