Coffee and Religion

I won't get into the details behind why I have this attitude, but to sum up a whole ball of contradictory emotions into one statement: I feel ambivalent about religion. I believe that spirituality is essential to the human experience.  I believe that there is some supernatural beings (or probably multiple ones) that we can refer to as "God."  I realize that our universe is not the only one and that the six days of creation described in the Bible represent the long (understatement) process of evolution that our globe went through (talk about growing pains!).  In all, I remain cautious and skeptical about the costs and benefits of religion, even though I belong to one of the largest religious institutions in the world.

Being of the "live and let live" and "learn about every religion because each reveals some part of Faith" school, I try not to let religion play a significant role in my public life.  I do not talk about religious practice as a social topic (academic discussions are fine) if I can help it.  I would certainly not try to convert anyone to my religion, and if anyone asked about it, I would share what I personally believe but never call it the utmost truth. You can consider these proclivities as stemming from fears about imposing my intellectual will on others (I do that enough professionally), becoming blind and closed-minded due to religious fervor, and allowing religion rather than reason to dictate *all* of my beliefs and actions.

But lo and behold, religion found me in the form of a serendipitous decision to visit the "Bonfire Cafe" in Causeway Bay. No, the storefront does not display large black, yellow, and orange flames. Rather, the shop's color scheme is mostly pastel green, yellow, and white. It's not a place that shows off the tough, daring nature of coffee, like a place I will write about another time. The atmosphere is like that of a hospital canteen (cafeteria), except less sterile and more cheerful.

I ordered a Costa Rican coffee, French pressed, and sat down with a glass of water to start. I only wanted to kill some time before a neighboring store opened, so I concentrated on doing some reading while waiting for the coffee. When it arrived, I noticed that the sugar and warm milk were placed neatly by the side of the cup. I passed on the sugar, but I tried some of the warm milk in the coffee after the first few sips and everything, temperature and taste, were in sync.

It was only as I was leaving the cafe that I realized the Catholic mission of the establishment. If I were a "good" Catholic, I would think that God led me there, but given that I'm of the "Catholicism is one of many manifestations of spirituality" kind (not the Vatican's favorite, I imagine), I figured that He just wanted me to have a delicious cup of coffee and that fate determined the rest... 

Stumping for Stumptown

As an academic, summer is the only time when I can justify thinking about work for less than 40 hours a week.  It's also a wonderful season of business and personal travel, brainstorming of new projects, and with strategic planning, opportunities to explore aspects of life that are utterly self-gratifying.  Therefore, the whole slew of posts to follow in the next few weeks describe episodes in the Scholar's Summer from May to August.  

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A constant in my life that I have yet to forget or refute is that I left my hometown, Portland, Oregon, to seek exposure to more culturally diverse environments. Many native Oregonians and one-time visitors to the Beaver State tell me that "everything is so hip" now -- a state of being that evolved after I started my life away from home 17 years ago. Every time I return to visit my parents, I feel like my sense of distance from the city, even the archetypical sleepy suburb where I was literally born and raised, is increasing. I even caught myself stuttering multiple times when trying to order food and purchase things -- despite having spoken English for all but two years of my life, I was not quite sure how to phrase expressions according to the latest colloquial linguistic trends in Portland.

But all snobbery aside, I am glad that Portland's cultural renaissance, or in my dim view, positive move towards cultural heterogeneity, has received much recognition and therefore further momentum to continue.  Non-chain establishments, environmentally sound practices are commonplace and beneficial for social well-being.

Thanks to an old friend (we met sometime in elementary school -- so wonderfully long ago, the exact circumstances are ancient history), I visited Stumptown Coffee in downtown Portland.  I am not sure why Portland is called Stumptown (go ahead and Google it, all I know is that when the Trailblazers were having great seasons, there were many interesting songs about "Stumptown") but I was very happy to see that the cafe was full but not overflowing with people.  A loft on the ground, seating seems to be deliberately sparse.  One can choose a small table, comfortably accommodating two people, or a stool at the bar.

I do not want this blog to become a tasting site, since I am neither a coffee professional nor a person who believes that my taste buds are much more sophisticated than other people's.  Yet I will throw in comments about good coffee, not because I receive compensation, not because I'm trying to endorse certain coffee beans/establishments and to criticize others.  I agree with my Wiser Half's assessment about tea, namely that a good tea is one that tastes good to the person drinking it.  Same with coffee...but at Stumptown, besides being initially impressed by the wide open space of Stumptown Coffee, then frustrated when it seemed that I could not secure a table to accommodate self, friend, and Wiser Half, and finally relieved when we could all sit down together, I was happy to have a cup of Ethiopian coffee that is just as distinctive, fair-minded, and multifaceted as my hometown is working hard to be -- Nano Challa.

http://stumptowncoffee.com/coffee/ethiopia-nano-challa-2/