Every weekday between 6:58
and 7:02 my abuela tica starts the Black & Decker “coffee makers” in our
kitchen to supply an aromatic stimulus for breakfast at 7:30 and lunch at noon.
It is always served with sugar, and never milk. If guests arrive, a first
question among others is “Quieres café?” While such visits often happen after
lunch, my host family will not drink coffee if guests are not present, but
aguadulce instead without accompanying snacks. Twice, I have seen Paula, my
host abuelo’s granddaughter, drink a child’s portion of coffee in the afternoon
from a small mug. Outside of the home, I have heard that many ticans prefer
coffee around three times per day: at breakfast, lunch, and late afternoon. I
know of three coffee house style eateries in the area that, along with all
restaurants I have seen, serve at least three formats of coffee: Kaldi,
Biscotti, and a small vender inside Editus
Academia de las Artes. Wherever I go, the drink seems naturally embraced on
all menus and by all present.
I remember first drinking
coffee in the tenth grade during exam times. My mom was horrified at first,
asking how I knew how to make it and exclaiming that I was hardly old enough to
drink it. This says a lot for my upbringing (possibly U.S. differences in
general) and the role of coffee as a post-export-boom national tradition in
C.R. culture. In the U.S., I think of the drink in two ways: as a stimulus for
work or an accompaniment to public socializing. These modes of consumption are
expressed in the cliché images of office workers on their coffee breaks and the
easily identifiable Starbucks locations with their abundant lounge sofas and
all. How citizens of both nations view coffee as both product and value seem to
vary, based on my personal history and other factors too. Although I inquired
continuously about how the drink is perceived here, it felt as though I was
going in circles with my host family possibly because they have little active
consciousness of the forces they are acting within.
Of all my coffee experiences
with the family, bringing home high quality product from the tour at the
beginning of our stay here to share with them has been most interesting. It has
not ceased to be an afternoon event about twice a week for someone in the house
to bring it up and for my host family to comment on the greatness of the brew
repeatedly. We have learned about the lower qualities sold in the local
markets, and I have lived the results.
The top photo is of a coffee
dispenser in the AM/PM nearby Mesoamerica. It is an efficient, convenient means
of anything from Hot Chocolate to Cappuccino. The machine is the most bizarre
of my experiences with coffee in C.R. yet; it would not be out of place in any
convenience store in the States. I would like to think that this is a cheap,
easy way to enjoy coffee on the go at the consumer’s convenience. But I am
quick to remember the warmth of having coffee with my host family at home, or even
with relatives and friends back home. This simple machine portrays a deeper
dichotomy of tradition and transformation of C.R. life, like the farmer’s
market does between urban and rural values. Compare it to the Black &
Decker that towers over the old-fashioned maker sitting always side-by-side on
our kitchen counter here. We used the old method once on the day of the water
outage – I have never tasted coffee as pure.
I have realized that my taste
for coffee has evolved since living abroad. Also, it is now clear that the role
of coffee in tican life is hardly well represented by an export statistic. I
would like to research how coffee as a daily commodity for the average tican
has changed over the last century, and more specifically in the last few
decades. As I continue taking part in the value that coffee expresses in my
homestay, I think more will reveal itself about what the bitter drink means to
my family and their culture.
No comments:
Post a Comment