The best quality coffee comes with quality people and quality time.
Even though people tend to value a quality coffee based on the seed, the process, the mix, the brand behind it, and the place where it is served, way before the fancy machines and baristas, there was simple coffee-time sharing.
My best coffee memories are associated with people, places, weather, and conversations. I can close my eyes and remember a variety of tastes framed in humbles homes, dirt floors, green mountains and valleys, dented pewter cups, cocoa-stained clothes, toothless smiles, rough hands, and broken Spanish that uttered the warmest and most sincere feelings.
There was the simple cerrero coffee, the one without sugar, especial to get you out of a hangover or just sharpen your sense after a long sleepless night. There were the ones with extra flavors provided by cinnamon, anise, or cloves. There was the coffee with rum or olive oil, used for some medicinal purposes. There were some richly mixed with fresh milk from cows or goats, and there were the watery one, which was all that family had to offer after they had ran out of coffee and had to pour boiling water on old coffee grounds.
All those coffees linger in my memory because of the people who offered them, more than because of the quality or sophistication of the preparation. I recently had a cold coffee with my youngest daughter at a new coffee house in town. I did not pay much attention to the price (not because I had money to waste) or the explanation the waiter and barista were providing about the mix. I valued that, of course, but valued the company and the conversation above all. I had not shared with my daughter since December and those 24 hours we shared then happened after a two-year hiatus.
That cold coffee tasted divinely because of my daughter and I will treasure that moment forever. I know that every time I go to that coffee house I will remember her. I also know she wants to have that cold coffee again, partly because it was her first and was good, but mostly because that brought us together and we had a great time there. The best quality coffee comes with quality people and quality time.
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