Beauty in Ritual

I love hearing about the ritualism associated with coffee. Coffee isn't just something you pick up and drink because you thirst, it's not even something soley picked up for caffineation. Between reading "Javatrekker" and "Home Coffee Roasting" by Kenneth Davids I'm brought into a depth of ritual that most of us have lost. I've read about the rituals of the Ethiopians (where the air is first purified by sweetgrass and burnt frankincense, and then coffee is roasted in a skillet over fire and then pulverized in mortar before three cups are served in succession) and the memoirs of an Italian (waking up each morning to the smell of coffee roasting on patios all over the neighborhood in little pans of coals with manual crank run cylinders turning over top). I thirst for a little adventure in my otherwise common life. I long to be welcomed in to the beauty of small celebrations of culture.

What is our American ritual? Have we become too rushed for simple beauties? Reducing ourselves to gas station coffee to get us through on long road trips, and we stumble out of bed happy to get a waft of anything to get us through our Mondays. There is an alternative, we can treat coffee like a fine wine, according to bean origin, depth of roast, freshness, grade of grind, method of brewing, quality of water. We can take something that has been stripped to the ordinary and restore it to beauty and art.

I boil the kettle, weigh the beans, grind them coarsely, poor the hot water over the grounds, cover loosely for 4 minutes and then slowly plunge the grinds to the bottom of the press. I choose a certain mug, not all of my mugs are meant for french press, I have a thin small mug with textured lines on it like string tied around it. I pour. I inhale. I slurp. I welcome you in.

Look for beauty in the common. Create ritual in the everyday.

* On a side note *
I spent more time today looking into what I will need to sell at the local farmer's market. Currently I need to find a commercial kitchen to roast in for food safety and I need to find out more about what I need to do personally to be licensed.

My roaster still hasn't arrived, but it is the holidays (and Happy New Year, by the way) and package delivery is slow. That means more time to really read "Home Coffee Roasting" instead of just excitedly jumping straight to the "how to" parts.