2011 Streak 87/365: A digression about coffee

2011 Streak 87/365: Walk - 4.95miles, Time - 1hr 30min, Weather - sunny spring day

A regime of cycling and walking has one great advantage over running - it is both easy and pleasurable to stop at a coffee shop. In cycling the ride to a cake shop and back is an established tradition, with walking it is just obvious that a coffee tastes better after you have earned it.

Of the coffee shops in Hemel the two I like are Tiki and Starbucks. Tiki ought to be my stone-cold favourite because it uses coffee from our local roasters (Smith's) but I mostly go to Starbucks.

It might seem odd to support the big multinational that a few years back was the focus of a lot of hate from anti-globalisation protestors - but it doesn't feel like that. It is not impersonal and it is staffed by people who are both friendly and nice. I was struck by this the other day as I watched one of the girls help someone who had cut his finger. She cleaned the wound and applied the blue catering plaster with care, almost as if it gave her pleasure to be helpful. I don't know if her unselfconscious good nature made the person with the wound feel better but it certainly lifted my spirits.

They also do a good job with the coffee. Usually I drink a flat white, which takes care and attention to get right and one of the guys there takes great pride in doing just that. I was talking to him and he said he had been in New Zealand (where the drink originated) and he had been amazed at the number of coffees he had that were better than the ones he made. So he came back and practised until he thought he had it mastered. You can only applaud his attitude and I know the practice has paid off because I drink the results.

I hold no brief for Starbucks as a whole and draw no conclusions about other branches. All I know is that coffee shops are places I like to go to to think or read, and the mood is terribly important. I like the mood of the Hemel shop.

Today's picture is another in the series of watching the seasons. It shows the development of an apple tree bud.

Ritual

It is first thing in the morning and I am in Café Nero, drinking a coffee before work - just reading the paper and watching the world go by. A man about 30 years old comes by with a large mug of coffee, which he places on the table, before carefully removing a dirty cup to another table. He then looks at the arrangement of the chairs and moves one a little forward and the other to the side so they equidistant from the table and symmetrical. He then takes another chair to make a triangle around the small round table, a few more minor readjustments and then he is satisfied. He now disappears and returns with a paper napkin and a handful of sugar bags. He thoroughly wipes the table and places the used napkin in the dirty cup on the other table. Still standing, he starts to add sugar to his coffee. The little bag is held between thumb and forefinger at the corner and given two shakes. The corner is ripped off and the sugar poured out. Eight and a half bags of sugar are added before the coffee is stirred. He then goes off again and gets a paper, arranges things on the table and finally sits down. There is an adjustment of the zip of his jacket and his posture before finally he takes his first sip from the mug.

Everything is done with deliberation and I wonder if the first sip is accompanied with that inward sigh that says ‘ahh just right!’ or ‘that’s better’. I compare it with my behaviour – where all I did was brush the old cup to the other side of table before sitting down and drinking, without much thought of what I was doing.

I think of Kieren’s report of the Berlin Marathon, where he mentions sharing a flat with other runners and finding out about their pre-race rituals. Again I think about what I do and can think on no ritualised behaviour. When I run, all I try to do is remember everything I need and get out in one piece – there is no calm order.

Perhaps I need to give everything more focussed attention. Ceremony can be useful – it fixes an event, gives it status and puts you in the right frame of mind.

I am reminded of something from a radio programme of 35 years ago (it could have been ‘From our Own Correspondent’), when the reporter talked of meeting some native Americans who used tobacco in their ceremonies. He asked what they thought of the way tobacco was used by westerners and they replied it was bad because it was not treated with enough respect.

This has stayed with me because it makes me think of how full attention can change the nature of a thing – give it a different cultural meaning.

In Café Nero the man is certainly giving his coffee full attention. Perhaps it is a valuable ceremony that enhances his pleasure. On the other hand he could just have a compulsive obsessive personality.