Tag Archives: coffee

A Response: The Time to get to Know What’s in My Cup

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A response to: “The time to get to know what’s in my cup” by grahamms

As a fellow coffee drinker, @grahamms’ reflection resonated with me. Not only do I regularly consume large amounts of coffee but it’s also my way of connecting with friends and family. Interestingly enough, the thing that connects me to people is the one thing I’ve never considered myself connected to. What I mean by this is that I never give it a second thought. Coffee makes me feel good, therefore, I drink it. And that is that. @grahamms brought up an interesting point in his post- the introduction of coffee pods. We no longer see the coffee we’re drinking! We’re consuming a product that hugely impacts our environment and we don’t even see it anymore.

I like contemplative practices because they allow us to open up a dialogue with ourselves and others. It puts us in a space where we can question the process of things and the role we play in it. That is why when @grahamms voiced my own feeling of impotence as he mentioned his lack of control over the issues of coffee trade; it led me to wonder- what can we do? Would decreasing or completely stopping our consumption of coffee help alleviate this environmental problem? 

I thought back to Richard Robbins’s essay on the consumption of beef and sugar from a few weeks back. Although Robbins considers reduction, he notes that there are a couple of inconveniences tied to it; not only would the size of the reduction have to be extremely large to see real change, but it would also cause severe economic disruptions. He concludes that it’d be difficult to change our consumption behavior because it’s such a central and necessary part of our culture. 

Although this didn’t leave me with any concrete answers, it did get me to think about the problem and all of the interdependent systems involved. And that is what contemplative practices are all about.

The Time to get to Know What’s in My Cup

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There are many types of meditation, while riding the calm wave of one’s breath. A contemplative practice is but one form of meditation. It serves as a moment for critical thinking, noticing, wondering, etc. Questions of how and why, and whatever else comes up along the way. This intentional moment to explore can be applied to anything in the imagination.

 

Dark beans…

 

I don’t usually think “exotic” when I think of coffee. Strange, because it’s possible that the coffee I drink comes from the same place my bananas do. In writing this blog, I also noodled around google images and found that raw coffee cherries have a color as vibrant and varied as a bag of Skittles. So why a disconnect between the two? Coffee is experienced through aromas, the sounds of grinding and brewing; dark beans, or dark powder. Now with coffee pods, you don’t even see the coffee.

 

In considering coffee and bananas, and tropical foods in general, during our class’s contemplative practice, it became very clear how     interdependent I am on world food systems for both sustenance and pleasure. Technically I don’t need coffee, but a life without my cup of Joe is not one I’m interested in. This process made me more appreciative of what I have in respects to coffee. In that sense I think that a contemplative practice is great, though I don’t necessarily know what to do with that recognition.

 

The world coffee trade is something I feel I have little control over, aside from buying organic and hoping that a rainforest wasn’t cut down for the sake of my morning ritual. But, in order to take care of something, it has to be valued. Perhaps with recognition and a willingness to pay a little more for coffee, that can make some difference.