I like visiting my mom’s house, but usually decline when she offers me a cup of coffee.  Hers is a humble cup of coffee—reheated in the microwave, probably brewed two or three days earlier—from a cheap generic brand of pre-ground beans, made in a simple Mr. Coffee machine, featuring tap water from the faucet.  She will let the pot sit for several hours on the coffeepot burner before thinking to turn it off.  She always saves the leftovers.  My mom is a lovely woman who serves a humble cup of coffee.  Very humble.

On the other hand, there is my daughter Alison.  I went to her house and watched her kids and dog for half a week, while she and Nelson were out of town.  Mindy watched them the other half-week.  Several days before Mindy and I were to report for duty, Alison sent us this text message:  “Let us know what kind of food and drinks you want to have on hand.  Dad—do you like light or dark roast coffee?  Mindy—I know you like oat milk in your coffee—which one?”  

When I arrived at the house to take up my duties, they had left detailed instructions:  one page on each kid, one page on the dog, and one page on how to how to use their coffee equipment. I got the hang of handling the kids and the dog by the second day—and didn’t need to check my notes anymore.  But I was still studying the coffee instructions on my last day there.  You will not find a humble cup of coffee in any of my daughters’ homes.  

Nor will you find a humble cup of coffee at our house in Urbana.  I too have my own conical grinding machine, coffeepot with a spray nozzle, and favorite brand of dark roast.  I keep the beans fresh in an airtight container.  As soon as my coffee is brewed, it goes in a thermos, where it keeps relatively fresh for a couple hours.  After that—it’s down the sink.  And if you come to my house, I guarantee you the freshest, best cup of coffee I’m capable of making. 

Jie has also outgrown the humble cup of coffee.  It got worse while we were in Spain.  She took a liking to the espresso-based lattes and cappuccinos there.  And so when we returned, I bought her an espresso maker.  Visit our home, and you will find us proud of our coffee.

I started drinking coffee during my junior year in college.  It all began in the middle of an 8 a.m. class on The Intellectual History of the Middle Ages.  I thought I had signed up for a course on Medieval History, eager to learn more about the Inquisition, the Black Death, Knights, superstitions, emerging nations, and the like. Somehow I misread the catalogue, however, and was appalled when I showed up the first day of class and discovered that I was stuck for a whole semester with a bunch of medieval philosophers.  No stories, just outdated theories and abstract philosophies. Instead of death and gore and war and stories I could tell my friends, I was confined to Thomas Aquinas and his farfetched theories about where people go after they die. Furthermore, the professor gave all his lectures in a monotone—he was on some sort of medicine that gave him a dry mouth all the time.  I was bored, irritated, and lethargic—within the first twenty minutes.  Each class consisted of a two-hour lecture, with a break in the middle.  On the first break of the first day, I headed to the vending machine in the hallway, popped in my dime, and drank my first cup of coffee.  I’ve had the coffee habit ever since.

I was a proud coffee drinker back in those early days, but it was not the pride of a coffee-snob.  Back then, I was proud that I could drink any kind of coffee—weak, strong, day old, with floating coffee grounds, made in never-washed coffeepots, drunk out of half-cleaned cups….  I could stomach anything—and enjoy it!  How pride changes with time.

What hasn’t changed for me—in more than half-a century of coffee drinking—is that a mug of coffee is still sacramental.  I’ve had plenty of bad coffee, but even the worst offered some intangible blessing—every libation being more than just the product of its scientific chemicals.  Each cup of coffee has materiality--but it’s the gift beyond the material that blesses:  joy, comfort, warmth, memory, generosity, miracle, hope—perhaps companionship. Even the most humble cup of coffee has spirit swirling in and around it. 

For those of you who are a bit religious, like me, something material is sacramental if it also conveys an added spiritual blessing—such as love, joy, or peace.  A cup of coffee sometimes comes with a splash of resurrection, or a touch of forgiveness.  We sense that God has endued the material with something ethereal—and call it sacramental—a material gift of God that has an added benefit.

Maybe coffee isn’t your sacrament.  That’s okay.  Weird, but okay.  I’m sure you could apply everything I’ve just written to some other daily material experience you have.  As for coffee, I’ll probably be a coffee snob until I lose both my sense of smell and taste—and can’t see how someone else is brewing it for me.  But nevertheless, I hope I never become so high falutin’ that I cannot always feel the touch of the sacramental. 

For those who aren’t too stuck in their ways when it comes to “proper” coffee, here is my recipe for a cup of Arabic coffee, which I tasted in Jerusalem and researched how to make at home.

1.     Preheat your thermos by pouring it full of boiling water

2.     Boil another 3 cups of water in a pan (I have a fancy Arabic dallah, but any pan will do)

3.     Take pan off the burner, let sit 30 seconds

4.     Reduce heat to low and put pan back on burner

5.     Add 3 Tablespoon of ground coffee—any coffee will do 

6.     Let it brew on low heat for 10-12 minutes—no need to stir, it may foam—do not let it boil though

7.     Take it off the stove, let it cool for a minute, then put it back on and add 1 Tablespoon of ground cardamom, let foam again

8.     Add four or five cloves

9.     Right before boiling, remove again, let cool for 5 minutes

10.  Empty thermos of hot water, add pinch of saffron and 1 teaspoon of rosewater to thermos

11.  Pour in the coffee mixture—but not the grounds

12.  Serve in small, strange-looking cups to your guests, filling each cup about half-way

13.  Arabic coffee is not usually served with milk, cream, or sugar.  But provide dates or cookies, etc.