I love coffee, and coffee loves me back, by which I mean I'm a fast metabolizer of caffeine so I can pretty much drink all the coffee I want all day long. Given that my superpower is sleeping, this means afternoon coffee doesn't disrupt my trips to Slumberland. Years ago while working at WSU Spokane I learned from one of our nutrition researchers that some unfortunate folk are slow metabolizers so they have to cut themselves off from the magic bean. So sad.
Coffee culture entered my life many years ago when I lived in Coeur d'Alene, where I tasted my first latte at The Roastery on Sherman Avenue, since closed. A 16-ounce latte with flavor was $1.85, o best beloved, and I felt so big-city sitting in the space with its wooden floors and high ceiling, the banging of the barista knocking grounds out of the little metal cup, the hiss of the steam.
I was broke enough that I couldn't indulge as often as I wanted, given that I was divorced with two toddlers and doing freelance copy editing client by client for a living. I'd put $2 cash into a jar when I had the urge to get a latte. Saving those dollars meant I'd have money for a latte or for something bigger, like going to a restaurant with those toddlers and being able to tip the wait staff.
Then I went to grad school and got that job at WSU Spokane, with enough salary to get coffee when I wanted it. I started practicing yoga at a studio right next to The Rocket on Main Avenue. That particular Rocket is also no longer there. For a while that spot was home to Boots Bakery with its fantastic vegan baked goods and comfort foods and good coffee as well. Boots has moved just across the street into the Saranac Commons so that block still has great coffee hang-out vibes.
Fast forward to living in Seattle, where coffee places abound including (shocker!) many that aren't Starbucks. My final job interview for the Washington Bikes executive director position took place at Grand Central Bakery in Pioneer Square, which became a favorite lunch spot when I got that job. Alas, it closed during the pandemic and didn't reopen, although they have other locations (and I'm now living in Olympia anyway).
But Zeitgeist is still open so no, I'm not a coffeeshop curse. Very near the Amtrak station, it's located in a building attached to the one where my WSDOT office was (next job after WA Bikes) so it was an easy choice on days I didn't explore farther afield. Great spot for a change of venue when I needed to take my laptop to a different space to shake up my thinking.
Jump ahead in time again to the first years of the pandemic when all I wanted was to be able to sit in a coffee shop with the gentle buzz of people around me, but people around me meant danger and possible death. Those third places matter (and the concept of the third place itself is closely tied to coffeehouses).
I now live in Olympia, with a downtown that offers plenty of good coffee and zero Starbucks locations. I don't make as many coffee-shop visits on my own as I once did, although my sweetheart and I regularly go for coffee on our weekend walks. When I'm in a coffee shop now, whether on my own or with someone, I pay attention, the way I did when I was broke and it was incredibly special. What makes it special now is the memory of how the pandemic took that social space away from all of us.
My relationship with tea hasn't been as consistent. I've always associated tea with my Grandma Humphrey (she of the rocker), who came from England to Canada on a ship when she was four and grew up in a tea-drinking British immigrant family. For Christmas I would pick out tea samplers to give her: Earl Grey and English Breakfast and Orange Pekoe.
I enjoy herbal infusions a great deal. To the purist these are tisanes, not tea, because they don't have actual tea leaves in them. They're my hot not-a-coffee cup when I need a change: Red Zinger, Bengal Spice, Lemon Ginger, Throat Coat if I'm under the weather. I have some delightful Scottish Highlands tea thanks to my sister-in-law's travels and it sometimes shows up as my morning cuppa. Millie's Sipping Broth is a more recent discovery, like bouillon but better and contained in a tea bag to make it quick and easy without those crumbs of undissolved stuff in the bottom of the cup.
None of these are coffee, though. Last year we watched "Spaceman," with Adam Sandler in a very different role as a bearded, morose lone astronaut who encounters an alien. The keeper line from that script: "The hot bean water. It is a ritual."
All this and the annual coffeeneuring rides organized by Mary Gersemalina, too. Bike to a bunch of places and drink coffee too? I'm all in.
No matter what your hot beverage of choice, it comes to your cup by way of a million million actions, to which Michael Cope pays homage in "Tea Ceremony". I'm serving up a few cups of coffee and tea poetry for you below.
"Tea Ceremony" by Michael Cope
To this tea, I pay homage.
To the growth in the bud,
to the cells exchanging
air, water and light, I pay homage.
"Tea" by Leslie Harrison
The tea leaves in their white paper pouch
in their skyblue mug—I’ve brewed thousands of cups
"When My Mother Makes Me Tea" by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
.... There is kindness
in the way she unwraps the tea bag,
my favorite earl gray, the bergamot
floral and strong.
"Coffee Break" by Kwame Dawes
and the cool air off the hills
made me think of coffee,
so I said, “Coffee would be nice,”
and he said, “Yes, coffee
would be nice,” and smiled
"Recipe for Happiness in Khabarovsk or Anyplace" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand café in sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups
"These Days My Music" by Mary O'Connor
when I can’t pray or think or read or make a decision,
I want to be burrowed in a corner with a cold half-cup
"In the Company of Women" by January Gill O'Neil
Make me laugh over coffee,
make it a double, make it frothy
so it seethes in our delight.
"I Allow Myself" by Dorothea Grossman
Charmed as I am
by the sputter of bacon,
and the eye-opening properties
of eggs,
it’s the coffee
that’s really sacramental.
