The Perfect Cup of Coffee

Recently, I've been thinking back on the different things I've done with friends. The moments, those times when I've shared something extremely special with one other friend that brought us closer together. Well, with my best friend Vicki I've had about a hundred moments and there's always a cup of coffee involved. I know, it sounds weird because anyone can walk into a coffee shop with another friend and have a cup of joe. So what makes me call this a moment? Because we both can remember the room we were sitting in, the time of day, and what we were both doing when we were drinking coffee on all those occasions.



For instance, I can remember back a few summers ago when we were both lounging around her apartment with our laptops open. On my screen was a story I was working on at the time and on hers about a billion poorly worded essays that she was grading. We shared the thoughts bubbling in our minds as we worked through that day, both with smiles on our faces. That's what I call a moment, when you can think back and not remember exactly what those thoughts were about, but that both of you were smiling and happy about something. And to be honest, it doesn't matter because the happiness was irrelevant of the conversation.

Our Irish Coffee

Here is a second example of how the conversation is irrelevant, but the place, the two of us, the coffee in our hands, and the smiles on our faces are all that matters. While I was visiting her and a couple of other friends in San Francisco, which for some reason happened to be a cloudy (though not rainy) week, we found a small place on the corner of a black called the Buena Vista Café. The appeal of going there was that it is supposedly the first establishment in the United States to serve irish coffee and they supposedly still serve the coffee the same way. We walked in, took some seats at the bar, and were quickly (and without ordering) served our irish coffees. I remember her smile, I remember talking to her about how good it tasted, and I remember my hair was a bit of a mess (oh well, I was still wearing it long then anyway). Still, two friends laughing and smiling, that's all we needed for our little moment in the colossal mess of problems that we call lives.

The Other Cups
Like I said in the beginning, anyone can walk into a coffee shop with a friend, and for me I have multiple times with my other friends. Even as I write this, I keep thinking back to about a week ago when my friend Jodi and I walked into a coffee shop and were sitting on our computers, working on our resumes. She would look at mine and say what she liked, then look back at hers and ask if I could add that aspect to her own. We sat in that shop for a few hours, smiling, talking, and sort of working on our resumes.

And even before that, we've been going to a place that's pretty much in-between where both of us live. Sitting out in the sun, sipping out caffeinated drinks in the hot sun, there's truly nothing better than enjoying a cup of joe with someone you appreciate. And maybe that's why Jodi and I keep going back to that same shop, sitting out in the same seats we always sit in, and talking over the mugs. It's social, it's enjoyable, and most importantly its the best cup of coffee you can ever have.

So here's a blog to commemorate all of that, a blog about what I'll remember as the perfect cup of coffee. There was no requirement of perfectly blended spices and the right aging of the beans. There was not a certain way that the beans needed to be ground or the right temperature of water in the coffee maker. No devices, no spices, no cream in the cup. What makes the best cup of coffee is the friend's you spend talking to while you drink each and every last drop. I guess what I'm saying is that you should call up your friends and talk not he phone, share your moments with them, and brew your own perfect cup of coffee.