This is a Post I wrote like a Guest for the Daily Shot of Coffee in August 17/2011. Hope you enjoy it as I did writing it.

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The Value Of Granted

In Venezuela, talk about Specialty Coffee is to talk like a Chinese. In a country where there are so many ways to drink coffee from a study not of the menu but as a product of the mind of the drinker, there is awareness of the term Barista, Coffee Roaster or origin coffee. Here, is known as the coffee boy, the guy who prepares the coffee. Period. We love coffee, we are high consumers of it, many of our meetings begin and end over a cup of coffee. But usually it is prepared by a person who has been trained to manage the coffee machine not coffee itself.

Five years ago began my concern for the coffee, I felt there was something else there in that beverage that we learn to drink since we were children and decided to start reading, studying and trying to understand, always via Internet – what was all this world that keep me wondering as a fan of UFO´s always searching for a contact of the third kind.

In our country, with few exceptions, is generally believed that the ultimate in coffee is Starbucks, anyone who travels abroad aims to go and buy a frappuccino and take a photo with the logo of the famous mermaid. And so far will be the world’s best coffee. Without question!

In the United States and most European countries, coffee is taken for granted, but the truth is not everyone knows the meaning of Specialty Coffee. They do not know they are lucky enough to go to any of those wonderful places that sell coffee and get a coffee origin of Sumatra, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Ethiopia, organic or not organic, decaf and regular, or even an exquisite and surprising Geisha whose taste in mouth confuses you to think if you are drinking tea or coffee or both at the same time, without wanting to offend the palate of coffee tasting experts.

Each country feels coffee in its own way, depending on their culture, for example in the USA, they like to drink it with milk, cream, accompanied with syrups, muffins and cakes of different flavors, while in Europe they drink more black, cut and almost no sugar, strong and with a gulp. Even China, dedicated mostly to the consumption of tea and not coffee, due to its recent opening to the entry of franchises and the entry of Starbucks at least in Beijing (a city I visited in August 2009) shows a growing interest in its young population who makes meetings of friends around a steaming cup of coffee as a symbol of progression and development into the future. Not to mention of course Latin American countries like Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, top producers and exporters of green coffee who have learned to create an entire industry based on excellence and quality. But unfortunately in our country for government regulations we can not import any of this origin coffee, so sad. In our country, consumers meet, talk, fight when making the order, change the menu asking you to remove or add other ingredients, calling coffee a “conlechito” clear, light brown, dark brown, Guayoyo, bottle, that you can not order in anyplace but here. But almost no one, very few, ask for a espresso or a double espresso, less! When this happens those around turns around and says: What? How can you drink this coffee? It’s not that not happens, it just is not common. They do not know the incredible experience that occurs in the taste buds when you take a properly prepared espresso, that feeling where you can feel the caffeine and other acids present in coffee, to try to determine if it has fruit flavors, whether sweet or if it has some species. They do not know the feeling in the roof of the mouth long after you’ve drunk your cup that leaves you wanting to come back and drink another. It’s another thing!

But I’m surprised how many people outside my country every day show a big interest not only to know who is that person who will prepare their coffee and how he/she does it but also care about the origin of the coffee they are drinking.

They do not know how lucky they are to do so. So, next time you drink an espresso either from a country not even know where it is geographically or what its language is, taste slowly and admire the coffee grown thousands of miles away from your home, produced under high quality standards and roasted by people who care doing the exact term that allows the beans only provide the best of itself, take enough time to savor it as you would treat an old friend who has traveled a long way just to sit at your side. And after that, be happy, thanks God.

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Maria Esther Lopez is a lawyer born and raised in Venezuela, passionate coffee lover, studying for Barista and everything about the coffee world at every place where she can travel, SCAA member.

Photo by zedworks.

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