Taste Minimal Living: Coffee
Taste Minimal Living: Coffee
One of my favorite minimal blog, The Minimalists, emphasizes that living life without excess doesn’t mean giving up things we love. Case in point: Coffee. I love starting my day with a warm cup of black tea or, on a rough morning, a mug of black coffee. Thinking minimally, I realized how many days a week I refuse to make the effort of ten extra minutes to brew at home. Instead, I’ll move those minutes into my commute and stop on campus or at Caribou/Starbucks for my daily caffeine dose. That adds up - not only the wallet, but as environmental waste as well. Many coffee shops are moving toward Green disposable cups and recyclable cardboard sleeves, but it still makes an impact.
Instead, simplicity is the goal, not refusing to participate.
Joshua Fields at The Minimalists talks about his realization and simple drinks on their blog,
The simplicity of Press [coffee shop] transcends the shop itself. Not simple for the sake of being simple, Press is simple because they’ve eliminated the excess in favor of the essential. It was Brett, after all, who convinced me to do the same with my coffee…
Back in the day, I used to load my cup of joe with heaps of cream and sweetener, more like a weak, milky, calorie-laden dessert than a drink. As I stirred in the excess, Brett would quietly rib me, encouraging me to enjoy the flavor without the additives.
I didn’t listen. Well at least not at first; not until the day when they ran out of my sweetener of choice, and I was forced to go without. It was an unpleasant shock at first—drinking only coffee and cream—but soon my taste buds adjusted, and guess what: I could better taste the coffee, and so I went without sweetener from then on.
A month later, being theexperimenterI am, I wondered what my coffee would taste like without milk, so I ordered an Americano and shook my head when Janell asked whether I wanted room for cream. Because I was unacclimated, the first sip was bitter, a strong punch to the palate. But then of course, a few days in, I acquired the taste, and for the first time in my life I could taste the actual coffee. It was more delicious than any of the sugary, weak, milky cups of yesteryear. Suffice it to say I never went back.
Interestingly enough, I had a similar experience. Coffee, like life, is best served simple.
It seems to me that black coffee is also a synecdoche for life: when you eliminate the excess—when you deliberately avoid life’s empty calories—what remains is exponentially more delicious, more enjoyable, more meaningful. Sure, it might be a bitter shock at first, but, much like coffee, a meaningful life is an acquired taste. Sip slowly and enjoy.
-Joshua Fields Millburn on Coffee at The Minimalists.
