Blog Week 6

In Costa Rica, people generally drink coffee all day; breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, coffee-time, dinner, and dessert. Most of these times, drinking coffee is not the only activity, coffee is usually accompanied by a fruit drink and some form of bread. Coffee of course is still considered a time for conversation or companionship, like it is in the U.S., but in Costa Rica, it also appears to be an expression of tradition. Coffee is still drunk by itself while people chat about their days or while people do their homework, and regardless of the event, that is taking place, coffee is served in mugs.

Along with tradition, most people in Costa Rica make their coffee in a very interesting, traditional way; the coffee beans are ground and placed in the bottom of cloth netting that is set in a holder, above your coffee mug. While hot water is poured into the netting over the coffee, you stir your coffee grounds; coffee drips out of the bottom of your netting, straight into your mug. After having this form of coffee many, many times, while I have been in Costa Rica, I can personally say that it is much better than having coffee out of a coffee maker. The first time I realized that I was getting coffee out of my own cloth-netted, coffee maker I was astonished. 

This is an individual, coffee-maker at a restaurant. Most restaurants in Costa Rica sell or offer coffee.

Not only is drinking coffee a very personal event in Costa Rica, but it is a time to sit and enjoy; it is not rushed. In the U.S. we tend to enjoy coffee-time as well, but in the morning and for snacks, coffee is used for a quick “jump” to our day, we often use coffee when we are running late – I have yet to see someone in Costa Rica drinking coffee on the bus or walking with their coffee to work. I believe this reemphasizes that the U.S. has put too many traditional events aside to rush to work. U.S. citizens spend a lot of time rushing to work and working, we spend very little time indulging in simple events that focus on bonding with those close to us. Like tea-time, or coffee-time, the U.S. has forgotten that these events can be used with family, we use that time to have work related meeting. At least in the U.S. coffee shops are available to anyone and we are working our way back to indulging in tradition.

When I spoke of the coffee-time tradition to my younger siblings in Costa Rica, however, it appeared I was still, somewhat, clueless. Many afternoons I have come home and had coffee, and snacks, with my grandmother and my mother, I neglected (at the time) to note that my siblings were not sitting with us. During this assignment, I came to realize that coffee is not just a developed taste, but it is also generational. My tica sisters do not drink coffee because it is not something they grew-up needing to drink, they much prefer juice or milk; even though they were invited to drink coffee around middle school. The age aspect of drinking coffee is not because of the need for maturity or adulthood, but the need for safety, coffee is hot and thus very dangerous for a young child to have possession of.

I found this all very interesting because in the U.S. coffee is considered an adult drink, or at least for college students and older, mostly because of the “need” for caffeine. Within my household in the U.S., I was allowed to drink coffee in middle school mostly because I had an older sister (in high school) that was allowed to drink coffee. But within a couple of years of being introduced to it, I did stop drinking it because I found that I did not need the caffeine and I didn’t need a hot drink – my tica sisters expressed the same thoughts to me. My 19 year old sister does not drink coffee because it is too hot, so she drinks a quarter cup of coffee with three quarters of a cup of cold milk. My other tica siblings plainly state they “just don’t like it [coffee]” which I believe does tie in to the thought of coffee requiring you to have a developed taste.     

What I found most interesting about talking with my tica sister, about coffee being generational, is that she said that it is similar with water in the U.S. While thinking about this concept I found that it is very similar, most older people drink coffee or tea, a younger generation drinks a lot of water or soda, and the youngest generation drinks a lot of juice or milk. Of course this plays more into the fact that the youngest generation is only served juice or milk, the other generation chooses water or soda because they can, and the older generations have the ability to buy or make coffee more readily than the other can. Of course, this is also affected by stereotypes and many exceptions may apply, but for the most part, it is a valid sequence across many countries.

A cafe** that serves mostly pastries, meals, and coffee is one page on the menu; this is very similar to restaurants and other cafes in the U.S.. However, in the U.S. we have places that serve just coffee with a couple of pastries. 

 In the U.S. most coffee culture is focused around polar opposites, either you have a lot of time to spend with friends, your with coworkers or business partners, or you are in a hurry and need a quick and easy thing to consume. Coffee is a versatile product, used in cakes, drinks, ice cream, etc., thus it has many different types of people consuming it and using it for many different occasions (not only in the U.S., but world wide).