over a cup of java

What does a cup of coffee mean to you? Or better yet what makes you sit down in a coffeehouse? The cafe has come to mean so much to us these days that its services go beyond what is called for by business. But aside from that, what story has the coffee cup to tell?

Coming from a gym this afternoon in the central downtown area, I decided to enter this brick-brown place that smells heavenly. The aroma of coffee wafted out into the pathway.

Standing by the door, I saw tan and bronzed walls ensconcing the conversation of friends who are planning a vacation somewhere with horses and idyllic rugged terrains. Cups of brewed coffee and saucers of cookies are on their table. They were really animated and sort of loud. Trying to drown out the staple jazz coffee shop music we've learned to expect.

A tall man was before me in the counter. He was ordering a chocolate strawberry cake of some sort to go with his tall cold fruit-coffee cream drink. He was on the big side, and I second the motion that he badly needs the nearby gym's facilities. But maybe he could not see the gym's door, and he was only drawn to the cafe's cool interiors.

Waiting for my order, I took a tiny table by the glass wall. Beside me was a lone gentleman whose order of sandwich and mug of coffee just arrived. As I settled to sit down, I was just in time to hear him on his phone telling the party on the other line that he was taking his meal in the coffee shop and not in the house. His house could be very far? Or they ran out of bread and coffee?

A couple, both in the darkest of sunglasses, was in another table for two. They were trying to look hip and attractive, but the kind that you know that were unhappy with whatever relationship they are in. Would the coffee drink they share be their last? Or the one to help them solve their differences?

But the best tableau of the cafe happened two tables away from me. A man was conversing to this attractive lady. She was talking a lot, using gestures. I think she was trying to impress him. She stopped and it was his time to speak. She nods, shakes his hands, and leaves. He was interviewing her! Is that even allowed here? You're looking for a new recruit and instead of meeting them in your office, you order a cappuccino and go through their CVs in the nearest cafe!

Life happens before you within a matter of a few minutes inside a coffee shop. Perhaps one of these days, when my Mama comes over for a visit, I'll take her into one of these cafes. Let her breathe in the smell of coffee. Ask her if it smells like the home she knew when she was still a child, when she would run along the long rows of coffee plants in bloom under the sun. But that is another story. And my order of java has already arrived.

Coffee cup photo credit: Coffee Made With Love