The Coffee Theory

I have been an avid coffee drinker for the past four years and I thought I would grow out of it but instead each day I fall more and more in love with it, more the act than the caffeine. And now a passion more so. Coffee, as a beverage, is not just a beverage but a love language and so I developed my own beverage theory.

“It felt like somehow this very moment itself was the meaning of life, pouring out our hearts before the coffee gets cold.”

There’s just something so comforting about waking up everyday and getting yourself a cup of coffee whether it be from your favourite cafe down the street or making it yourself in your kitchen when it’s still dark outside. Sitting on your couch savouring every sip whilst you prepare yourself for the day ahead. Have a book in your hand or maybe put on some soft music in the back, the future doesn’t seem that scary anymore. This right here is an act of love in my opinion.

As you get ahead in your day and plan a date with your friends, to the new coffee place around town. All of you gather up after weeks maybe because your schedules just don’t match anymore, but today, right here everything is alright in this coffee shop, leading to this day. You get your lattes and americanoes, some iced others hot, maybe sweet maybe not, but all brimming with love just the same. You catch up with everyone and their lives, relive your best moments and drown in those bittersweet waves of nostalgia as you finish your drinks and share those accompanying treats. Hours feel like seconds and you don’t even realise how long you’ve been there. That right there is the purpose of life, the reason you’re alive. Maybe the coffee wasn’t the direct reason but was definitely a cause. And as you all get up to say goodbyes and hug each other tight, hating to part, you walk out with a sun shining through your heart and suddenly life is worth living again.

It’s a first date on a Saturday afternoon and you wear the outfit you’ve just been waiting for the right occasion for, a living idol of confidence in it. You get to the place and meet the person, they’re really good looking and sweet, also they put in the effort to dress up, extra points for that. You get to the place and order a coffee each, you deem them as an americano, no-nonsense, straightforward, but they get themselves a flat white instead making you realise that people are not always what they might portray, but you remember their order and things go well, better than expected and laughs were easy to come by before the coffees got cold.

One month and three dates later on a Tuesday morning your doorbell rings and there they are, to go cups in hand. A flat white and a skim milk cappuccino with two packs of stevia, and that’s when you fall further because they remember your order. Fast forward to two years when you wake up with them on your side still groggy, get up to go to the kitchen and on a tray bring back their flat white and your cappuccino. Three years since you’ve been having flat whites and cappuccinos together until you’re not, you developed a taste for iced lattes that are not sweet but flat whites now will always remind you of them.

It will always be a series of lattes and americanos and even shots of espressos that will always remind you of someone. Each cup will have a memory attached to it, some happy others not so much. And you might even change your order, find and refine your tastes as you go about experiencing life, reminiscing on the inconsistency of it. How you can like and love one thing for a long period and then suddenly you don’t, you move on. Everything is temporary but you love coffee still the same, in whatever form.

This applies to true relationships as well, you will always love those people in every form. That is true love. Accepting they changed and so did you but their place remains the same.

So, it’s not just a cup of coffee but an act of love, there’s love when you make it for yourself every morning, there’s love in “here I remembered your order”, there’s love in gossiping with your friends on a catch up date, there’s love in “mom, do you want a coffee, I was making some”, there’s love in that barista’s “you got this” note and there’s love in curling up with your favourite book and the perfect cup on a weekend after a busy week, there’s love in every act around it. The coffee itself might not be it but the act of making it instead. “I love you, here’s a cup of coffee.”

That is what I deem The Coffee Theory.