Taste of Tea

I've known my boyfriend, Kelly, for many years now, but sometimes he still surprises me. Somewhere around five years ago, when we both worked at summer camp, we had a tradition. At the end of our ridiculously long work day we would meet in the kitchen and choose the biggest bowls we could find and fill them Golden Grahams, and then we'd heat up a cup of tea to drink on the side. As we ate we would sit on the floor of the kitchen and talk for hours.

Yesterday he tackled the task of cleaning out the kitchen cupboards in our apartment and found some 14 boxes of various teas. As he told me about the tea he said, "So you should drink it, because I hate the taste of tea." I looked at him, bewildered, as we had shared dozens of cups of tea that summer. He smiled and said, "I hated it then, too. I was just trying to impress you."

Contributed by Aryn.

French Roast Guatemalan

A man came into my coffee shop today and asked for a fill of French Roast Guatemalan in his travel mug. As he began to speak I could tell instantly that he was a person that I would encounter for a very brief time, but will remember until my neurons fail me.

Taking advantage of the moment, he told me a story about his travels to South America. He remembered a seemingly insignificant experience in San Pedro, Guatemala, where he watched a few young boys play soccer in a yard. On the edge of their makeshift field there was a pile of coffee beans drying in the sun. One of the boys kicked the ball out of bounds and the three of them went running barefoot across the coffee beans, completely oblivious to them. At that moment he thought about the fact that those beans would likely wind up in the grinder at a small coffee shop just like ours, with customers consuming their juice with no realization of the journey they'd encountered.

An hour or two later the same man lingered at the counter. As I poured a cup of beans into the grinder I apologized for the loud noise about to curse his ears. He looked at me and said, "You should never apologize. When you say 'I'm sorry,' you're not just saying it to me, but to everyone around you, to the universe. You're giving birth to words that shouldn't exist. If I were concerned about the noise, then I shouldn't have chosen this spot to sit. My friends and I play the pinching game, and every time one of says 'I'm sorry 'we pinch each other as a reminder that not one of us really has anything at all to be sorry for."

Contributed by Aryn.