Over the last few years I have been exploring what it is for me to have an enjoyable cup of coffee, especially, after drinking a brand of coffee that I have been purchasing over the last few years from a local distributor, when a friend (JP) introduced me to the organic coffee that he uses which he discovered after participating in a workshop on how to make coffee.
To further heighten my interest while I was in Vienna on my latest trip to Europe I had the opportunity to go to a coffee distributor in the city with a friend (FJ) who wanted to purchase some decaf coffee for himself, and while we were there we tried some of the different coffees on offer.
It was then that I realized that I have not even learn’t a fraction of what there is to know about coffee, but what I can set my intent on is to find some coffees that I can appreciate and enjoy drinking. :-)
JP showed me that the commercial distributors slightly burn the beans in an attempt to standardise the taste of the different flavoured beans which are purchased from various regions, and afterwards he offered me a cup of the standard coffee followed by a cup of his organic coffee, and the difference in tastes were like night and day. :-)
From this I came away from the experience with a different awareness of the possibilities for enjoying coffee, which has since that experience been further highlighted when FJ and I took a few minutes to enjoy a cup of together in Vienna.
After returning to Chile from my trip to Europe during the 1st week back, I went to my local distributor and bought myself some coffee beans which I thought were the better quality, as I was about to finish the current stock that I had at home.
Over the following weekend something wasn’t sitting right about the brand that I had purchased, and I kept thinking about this purchase, when I then had a “Just you wait up there fella!!!” moment, and from this I remembered that these were the same coffee beans as the coffee beans that I already had at home, the same coffee which left me with the burnt taste afterwards.
The more I sat with this the more I realised that this was not the taste that I had come to appreciate, and what wasn’t sitting right with me was that I had committed to keep exploring staying open to new possibilities, and here I was purchasing the same items as before.
So the following Tuesday I returned to the distributor with the intention of exchanging my coffee for a slightly more mild version from Medellín, only to discover to my dismay that they were out of stock of that particular type of coffee.
Fortunately for me there was however only one bag of coffee left of a different type, also from Colombia, which I hadn’t tried before and I thought “Isn’t this just a clear indication for me to keep it simple and to try something new” LOL, where then exchanged what I had for this new coffee.
I really appreciated having made the effort of going back and not settling for 2nd best, as this new coffee has turned out to be much more flavourful than the previous ones I have tasted, closer to the taste that I have enjoyed while I was drinking coffee with my friends JP and FJ :-), and this example also reminds me when I take time to enjoy my coffee to be aware of this concept in other areas of my life as well.