When I turned to the supplementary page of the Times of India today, what I saw was a half a page description of coffee habits in different parts of the world. I found the narrative above fascinating and informative.
Although Anna and I have had experience of coffee traditions in about ten countries, we are yet to have an experience of the practices and traditions of coffee in Morocco, Japan, Brazil, Italy and South Africa. Therefore a reference to the coffee traditions in Morocco and Japan offered new information and delight.
Anna and I got used to the habit of South Indian filter coffee about 40 years ago, accidentally. Our neighbour ground coffee seeds every day around 5 am and the its aroma breezed through our house. Next to the street where we lived, there was a shop of Leo coffee, from where we could buy freshly ground coffee.
Since then we got used to making decoction of coffee and make coffee by adding undiluted milk after whisking the milk to create a froth.
It was when our young son bought us a coffee grinding machine a few years later, we got into the habit of grinding coffee seeds every morning. That added to the richness of the coffee.
When we retired from our work at CMC Vellore and came to stay in our cottage in the village where we are now 12 years ago, this experience got further expanded to have different coffee beans each day of the week to grind. We, since then have seven different flavours of coffee. Joy and Grace, our friends from Australia gifted us a stirrer which helped to froth the milk better.
More than these physical aspects of coffee making, what emerged in our home is the ritual associated with coffee time. I felt, from the time we got used to drinking coffee early in the morning forty years ago, an urge to offer a cup of coffee to Anna at her bedside every morning. I confess that I do only few things for the upkeep of the home. In fact even those chores got gradually decreased since children left home.
However I have not got tired of getting up in the morning to make coffee and sit together with Anna for our morning conversation and prayer.
I know of some men, who have made this as their practice to prepare coffee or tea in the morning and wait for their spouse to get up. I recall how they do it as a small act of thoughtfulness towards their spouse. As husbands, most of us receive many acts of kindness and gestures of thoughtfulness from our spouses. It is therefore appropriate to reciprocate that in small ways so that we remain earthly and rooted in the mundane things that constitute a home.
Generally I find husbands have been forthcoming to share responsibilities in most homes where both spouses are working. This co-home keeping, co-owning household chores and co-parenting which is relatively a new phenomenon is a big step forward. Both spouses feel for each other and support one another, an essential stimulus to making a home of shared living.
The coffee time is a conversational time. The coffee creates the context.
Whenever I had an opportunity, I raised this matter with other husbands to take the responsibility of brewing tea or coffee or prepare any other hot beverage which can create a shared time of conversation between the spouses. A small step towards expressing a caring heart!
I find that an unhurried conversation between the spouses in the morning and a prayer time before children get up, can be an occasion, which can create a growing sense of intimacy between the spouses.
I wanted to shift to having coffee without milk and sugar. I could manage skipping sugar for some years now. I am not sure, if I would be able to give up milk! The discipline of having two cups of coffee normally, during the day is what Anna and I have found practical. We are used to serving tea for visitors as we found that, most people prefer tea to coffee.
If the spouses decide that whenever possible they would share the coffee or tea time and turn them to become conversation times, the quality of conversations would change. From talking about routine house keeping matters, we would turn to ourselves and to each other to give and receive affirmation during conversation.
Let me suggest that the ritual of conversation around coffee time can upbuild marital intimacy and communion!
M.C.Mathew ( photo and text)
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