Life-Love 65: The first sip of coffee

For those among us who love coffee, there is nothing like the first approach our favourite muddy drink. First there is the feeling of personal sagging that brings on the desire for caffeine: drooping shoulders, twitchy eyelids, a cottony batten in the mind that seems to start around the ears and spread to behind the eyes, taking sharpness and acuity away and making the world feel a little gauzy. These are the symptoms that constitute a call to action and march to your trusty best café. You line up and the aroma of the joe of others wafts tantalisingly toward you, and your nerves awaken slightly. Then as you come to the counter you almost sing the words that describe the particularities of your caffeine habit. The person behind the counter looks at you and nods sagely, turning to pour and steam and mix and sprinkle until you masterpiece is done. If your coffee of choice is a cappuccino, then it may have a cloverleaf or a crown or a flower drawn in flowing brown lines in the foam – a reflection of the barista’s mastery of the métier. You take the warm cup into your hands and feel it tingling up through your fingers and into your wrists. Your clenched shoulders relax a little and you close your eyes gently as the scents of java and milk and perhaps a hint of cinnamon reaches your nose. Then you bring the cup to your lips, and feel the familiar shape of its brim as you tip it and the hot, slightly acrid liquid wets your upper lip and spreads over your tongue and across the roof of your mouth. Your nostrils flare a little, your mind awakens and you feel an awful lot better than you did, but a few short moments ago when you were weary.