Starbucks has introduced me to the world of coffee tasting. I'm new to it, but I am learning. They say you don't drink coffee just for the caffeine. A that it's ok just the way it is, that you don't need cream and ten packs of raw sugar. They also say that some coffees actually taste different from others. A diversity of aroma, acidity, body, and flavor.
The first step in coffee tasting is fun, yet silly to observers. Smell your coffee. It's a good idea to swirl your cup a little, to aerate the coffee, releasing the wonderful nose candy. I'm not sure if this really helps, but it makes you feel like your drinking wine. After you sniff your joe, slurp it. They say slurp so you splash your tongue, sprinkling all of your taste buds. I say slurp so you don't burn your tongue. A swollen tongue can dramatically alter your coffee tasting experience. Most of your descriptions will be "smoky and a little spicy". Plus you won't taste anything the rest of the week. The last two steps include locating the concentration of flavor on your tongue and then describing the taste.
They give you some helpful terms to describe the taste. Nice words like, "Intense, elegant, clean, caramelly." I translated a few… "Earthy"…tastes like dirt. "Herbal"…tastes like wet grass. "Smoky"…tastes like burnt popcorn.
They also offer a few hints in helping you realize the variety flavor. One is food pairing. Often a pastry can brighten a coffee's unique taste. A cinnamon role can bring out the spice in Sumatra. I just think it's a good idea because cinnamon roles taste good, so good that you forget the dirt taste of coffee.
Sometimes, they say, it can be helpful to compare two blends of coffee together in order to taste the differences. Makes sense to me, worse coffee makes bad coffee seem good.
I have to admit, I'm a little cynical, but also equally interesting, in coffee tasting. Sometimes I wonder if I'm really getting it or if my imagination is just getting better. Either way, this experience has caused me to wonder…
If drinking coffee slowly and analytically can make dirt taste good, or at least interesting, than how would sweeter and more fulfilling foods taste if I really tasted them deeply? Anyone up for a chocolate milkshake tasting? A shrimp tasting? A pizza tasting?
Or even more importantly, what if I tasted life like I do coffee? I think coffee tasting is a metaphor for life, and it's not just the cup that you are given that decides the flavor, it's the way you drink it as well.
Slow down. Take pictures. Journal. Tell stories. Find the beauty in your situation. See the good in people. "...live deep and suck out all the marrow of life" (Thoreau, Walden).
9.09.2006
9.07.2006
goodbyes are not for good
I wore my favorite hat Monday. My star hat. Its kaki cloth is pealing off the white plastic bill from almost ten years of wear and a few too many washings. I don’t wear it much because it’s endangered. But this was a special day. I was going to Mayberry (where they taped the Andy Griffin show) with the Dumont’s.
I’ve only known Tim and Angela Dumont since January, but it seems like years. They are the kind of friends that feel like family, because they are a family that knows no stranger. As a stranger they invited me into their humble, rented home*, served me homemade Chinese food from heaven, listened to my story (and told their own), and trusted me with their kids.
Tim and Ange have three kids. They are on a family planning system modeled after rabbits so they eventually will own their own school bus (just kidding dude). They home school too and I love them for that. Noah, Amber, and Claire are my three favorite people in North Carolina. While we walked the streets of Mayberry, we called the crosswalk stop signals, “high-five signs” and slapped each others hands until it was time to cross the street. Later that night, after we shared my last meal in NC (we made my mom’s famous “frito pie” and watched Mary Poppins), we played ring around the roses. Then I spun them in circles, one at a time, until I fell over dizzy or until one of them was hit by their spinning sibling’s foot. After one of them would cry or I regained consciousness, we’d do it again. At bedtime I read them The Potty Book, an inspiring and well illustrated book about going “wee-wee” and “poo-poo”. Recommend it.
Then they gave me hugs.
Then Tim and Angela and I took turns telling each other why we would miss each other (a good habit even when one is not saying goodbye).
Then they gave me hugs.
Then the kids gave me more hugs.
It’s good to wear a hat when you say goodbye. Incase you cry, that is.
I pulled my star hat down over my face because my heart was overflowing, leaking love out my eyes.
Amber kept giving me hugs and saying goodbye. I could feel her tiny little beating heart against my chest. She told me, “I’m gonna miss you this much”, extending her arms almost as far as they could reach.
This is the love I drove away waving at, wondering, “Why am I doing this?”
But goodbyes are not for good. And missing something means you have something worth missing. Maybe I’ll move back to NC someday, maybe not. I know I will write, visit, and never forget, the crazy and amazing Dumonts. They were to me grace. They are to me family.
*Tim and Ange have little, but so much...in a place where many have so much more, but far less. They have shown me that it is better to give, than to receive. What they have they’ve shared with me. I’m am greatly indebted.
I’ve only known Tim and Angela Dumont since January, but it seems like years. They are the kind of friends that feel like family, because they are a family that knows no stranger. As a stranger they invited me into their humble, rented home*, served me homemade Chinese food from heaven, listened to my story (and told their own), and trusted me with their kids.
Tim and Ange have three kids. They are on a family planning system modeled after rabbits so they eventually will own their own school bus (just kidding dude). They home school too and I love them for that. Noah, Amber, and Claire are my three favorite people in North Carolina. While we walked the streets of Mayberry, we called the crosswalk stop signals, “high-five signs” and slapped each others hands until it was time to cross the street. Later that night, after we shared my last meal in NC (we made my mom’s famous “frito pie” and watched Mary Poppins), we played ring around the roses. Then I spun them in circles, one at a time, until I fell over dizzy or until one of them was hit by their spinning sibling’s foot. After one of them would cry or I regained consciousness, we’d do it again. At bedtime I read them The Potty Book, an inspiring and well illustrated book about going “wee-wee” and “poo-poo”. Recommend it.
Then they gave me hugs.
Then Tim and Angela and I took turns telling each other why we would miss each other (a good habit even when one is not saying goodbye).
Then they gave me hugs.
Then the kids gave me more hugs.
It’s good to wear a hat when you say goodbye. Incase you cry, that is.
I pulled my star hat down over my face because my heart was overflowing, leaking love out my eyes.
Amber kept giving me hugs and saying goodbye. I could feel her tiny little beating heart against my chest. She told me, “I’m gonna miss you this much”, extending her arms almost as far as they could reach.
This is the love I drove away waving at, wondering, “Why am I doing this?”
But goodbyes are not for good. And missing something means you have something worth missing. Maybe I’ll move back to NC someday, maybe not. I know I will write, visit, and never forget, the crazy and amazing Dumonts. They were to me grace. They are to me family.
*Tim and Ange have little, but so much...in a place where many have so much more, but far less. They have shown me that it is better to give, than to receive. What they have they’ve shared with me. I’m am greatly indebted.
making music (national cheesecake day)
Last Sunday night a band called "The Format" was playing in downtown Greensburo. Some friends and I went to the show, well, at least to the door anyway. But we never saw the stage and never sang along to the one song we knew. The place was sold out, so we walked away from Green Street dejected, upstream against the rush of eager faces and hands full of tickets.
I remember Brittany saying, "Let's not be disappointed." But we all were, and no one had any ideas. There was awkwardness and regret. Momentarily optimistic I blurted, "We should make our own music tonight". But no one had any instruments.
After a few more failed attempts at finding something to do we ended up at Tait Street Coffee were we had peach cheezecake, because after all it was National Cheezecake Day. Seriously. Then we talked...about hurt, change, and the future. We looked at art. Met a few new people. It was turning out to be an ok night. After we got tired of sitting we went for a walk through the campus of a nearby university.
We came across some "itchy" trees that seemed to be shedding all their bark. Their falling skin was like natural paper so we started peeling it off. I like to think we were scratching thier backs. We all kept some bark to later write on.
Though we were wandering with seemingly no purpose, we were beginning to feel strangely comfortable with each other, our silence, and lack of plan. It was good just to be together. I had forget about the concert, so much so I didn't realize I had forgotten it.
I layed down on a bench next to the itchy trees and wondered if any homeless person ever slept there. I wondered what it would be like to sleep there. I closed my eyes to try to imagine. Just then I heard a sound from all directions like the turning on of hundreds of televisions...or the turning on of a sprinkler system on a hot humid night in North Carolina!
Though none of us knew what to do all evening, suddenly we all new what had to be done in that moment. We ran. We danced. We "made music" on the lawn until we were soaked with it.
There are few things worse than the feeling you get standing outside a building, empy-handed, on a street filled with music, staring at a scribbled piece of scrapp paper taped in a window with the words "Sold Out" written on it.
But it is ture also, that there are few things as beautiful as discovering the "music" inside yourself and others.
This is the gift of spontinaity. The opportunity in plans foiled. Creativity is your personality singing, a song too often unsung.
Some of my favorite memories are plan B's. It is in those moments I am forced to find out what is really inside of me. It is then that I have seen how beatiful my friends can be. That's that kinda stuff that can't be sold out. That's the kinda of music that requires only the instruments of our hearts.
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