You know how they say that moving house is traumatic and at the very least unsettling well I think that quitting the lease on your espresso machine (moving house) and then finding your have to drive 15 minutes to get your pagi pagi aka early morning espresso daily bean bliss is way more traumatic and possibly dangerous, namely because I am driving my scooter uncaffeinated.
Indonesia is the 4th largest coffee producer in the world producing about 770 thousand metric tons of coffee each year!. Bali is an island of coffee addicts they LOURVE being caffeinated. They drink it out of sachets, sachets with milk powder built in, sachets whose internal contents unexpectedly and weirdly foam up attempting to impersonate cappuccino, sachets with other sachets attached to the outside. the drink it and appear to enjoy probably because the putridness is masked by clove duzzbangers... or may be it really is good coffee?
Then there is the always available every where even off the back of a scooter on the side of the road served in barely capable of holding luke-ish warm coffee half melted, always scrunchy possibly dusty plastic cup.
Coffee bubuk is cheap and effective and usually loaded with sugar.so much so your teeth may just leave your mouth without any discussion. Kopi Bubuk is ground powdery coffee thats mixed with warm water always the sugar, more hot water is put over the top of that muddy mix. Then it gets its own little coffee cup hat you leave on top till its luke warm. Then you sip the sugary warm beverage whilst sucking hard on a Semporna (clove duxxbanger)
No one, I mean no one apart from tourists drink coffee Luwak or Asian Palm Civet. Basically a wild cat eats the coffee bean and shits it out and then you drink it, yeah nah who first thought that was a good idea??? Some joker saw a cat shit a beans and said "Im gone grind a butt bean?" This is apparently the most expensive coffee in the world. The industry is unregulated the cats are chained and kept in cages and force fed. The coffee you are sold probably hasn't come out of any cats bum. I can honestly think of better things to spend my yoga pennies on.
ESPRESSO ESPRESSO ESPRESSO
Angelo Moriondo of Turin, Italy, who invented the first ever espresso machine in 1884, I doubt had any clue that his magical bean squeezer would reach the far far away isle of Australia. And that the large island inhabitants would buy houses in suburbs based solely on the accessibility to excellent coffee and the hard core culture that surrounds it. Australia is a coffee culture leader/ pusher/ BOSS.
If you fuck up an Australians' coffee they will let you know. You, Mr Barista will know and then you may not have a job. The offended coffee connoisseur will Instagram and Facebook their audience, phone their mother, sister and best friend to let them know how the bloody barista fucked up their morning and there for the rest of their day. This conversation will have legs for at lest 5 days and will be brought up at Christmas parties and birthdays for the next 5 years.
Australians now lord it over cafe culture in Bali. Because we cant live without our daily bean squeeze we installed machines and breathed down the baristas neck until they learned exactly what every style of coffee is and every weir name each different state WA's long mac NSW's flat white ....piccolo cortado machiato ristretto and perfected each customers coffee request. Its on like donkey kong and the Balinese have grabbed that baton and run with it. Bali today has espresso machines on every single corner in every village, they do good espresso and if they don't you will know because there will be no Australians within koo wee.
Bali has its evolved its own coffee culture growing its own robusta beans and more recently certified Arabica which is a delicious little brown bugger when its roasted. The Bali coffee scene is fully loaded with small independent roasters, boutique blenders, global coffee experts , international competition judges, consultants bean specialists and baristas in overalls and dark denim & leather trim aprons with tattoos and waxed moustaches who take their coffee very bloody seriously.
And they charge for it, you can pay $9 here plus plus for your double shot... now that is taking the piss. Jakarta will pay, Australians will not.
Speaking of Jakarta, they like coffee too, they like instagram. they like Tik Tok and ensuring every moment is captured for social media, they like cafe culture. Unlike the very very specific Australians, Jakrtans will ask you to make them a coffee, you ask them what kind of coffee and they will tell you to make it how you like it. I was so scared the first time I heard this, freaking out thinking that their coffee would not get any social media love and instagram attention, I was wrong. I forgot momentarily that they grew up on a coffee diet of random sachets, that may or may not foam, Circle K and Nespresso with creamer all with heaps of sugar. They are still learning what they love.
So that brings me back to the house move, basically I feel like I am camping at the moment! My one room with a bathroom and balcony has an outdoor kitchen is in a very very peaceful location there are cows and chickens that aim them selves regularly at my moving scooter as I meander my way through up the windy roads to the beach and back, I duck and cuss, then laugh thinking how far for the city I have moved :)
Like the rest of Bali there is an espresso machine literally 2 minutes for where I am currently camped out. The poo poo is that the venue doesn't open till 8 bow bow to late. 7am is doable and that means driving 15 minutes up the hill to get my morning bean squeeze bringing me back to my dilemma, I am driving uncaffeinated up the windy road of dog-sticles and low flying chickens (dog-sticles are the Bali dogs that take up residence in the middle of the road and you have to drive around them.
So here are the options:
a) I move house
b) I ask the closer cafe to open an hour earlier
c) I give up espresso/ take up kopi bubuk
d) I continue to drive up the hill
e) I buy my own espresso machine
This leaves me questioning my coffee attachment/ love/ routine/ addiction. I never even liked it till I was 40 up until then I was a tea drinker. Then I gradually let it sneak in and be my morning habit now I am literally in a committed relationship with my morning coffee.
Why do I love it so much? Is it the company in the coffee shop? The early morning Indonesian language learning? Is it the delicious taste of those precisely roasted and pressed beans? Is it the buzz? The flavour? The ritual of it all? Its all of it.
Attachment?? Am I just attached to it?? A life in yoga gives us guidance in the form of Aparigraha or non-attachment it's the last Yama in Patanjali's Eight Limbs of Yoga. So how we can I cultivate a little more ‘non-attachment’, ‘non-greed’ or ‘non possessiveness’ over my double shot ristreto cortado?
I have proven I can go without it, I just don't want to. I could drink tea or just hydrate with water, but I love my morning coffee. So its up the hill I go tomorrow morning, may be the next day I will try non attachment
Ah my sweet Bali Bean squeeze of bliss.