Mindful Living with Coffee
Coffee is not just a drink. It’s a wonderful sensational experience!
To fully appreciate the aromas and flavors of our coffee drinks, we should make it a habit to cleanse our mouths properly before taking the first sip.
What’s the best way to cleanse our palates?
There are many different ways. It all depends on us and our preferences.
Continue reading THE ART OF COFFEE DRINKING
My first memorable experience with coffee was smelling the drink while I was in the kitchen with my mother. She’d put on a pot for herself or friends, and soon our house would be a cafe. The aroma still returns me to those soothing days of youth.
Later on, when I was a teenager, a friend inspired me to discover the magic of coffee more intimately. I tried chewing the beans, and their flavour was new to me—bitter but simply delectable.
As an adult, I began to drink instant coffee and espresso regularly. Though I did appreciate both, nothing could match my love for filter coffee.
Quality filter coffee offers an unparalleled variety of flavours. If you focus closely on your coffee drink, you’ll appreciate tones of countless fruits, herbs, and tea flavours. Some components are bitter or spicy, others acidic or spicy. Properly brewed, filter coffee offers a perfect balance of flavours combined with an amazing aroma, texture, and mouthfeel.
Filter coffee may also be called coffee tea. Why? The method of filter coffee preparation is very similar to preparing tea—especially if you prepare coffee via a cotton filter or French press.
This may spark your imagination: filter coffee can also be compared to alcoholic drinks. Pour-over coffee is much like wine. Both drinks are derived from a fruit and bring about similar effects. They put us in a comfortable mood and help to reduce stress. Both display a wide range of flavours, intense aromas, and varying textures. Think about that when having a cup!
Sticking with this analogy, it might be noted that espresso drinks are more like brandy or cognac—caffeinated fruit-shots. Then, you have many variations of the cocktail: mixes with milk, flavoured syrups, sugars and even spices. What they create tastes little like coffee, which brings me to . . .
So, why do I favour filter coffee? Why do I love it so much? Because I like to enjoy the true flavour (including the aftertaste) of coffee. Likewise, I want the aroma and body—the mouthfeel. I want it all.
Espresso has a short, wild life. I prefer to enjoy my coffee slowly . . . using all of my senses.
“Our senses are like a gateway into the world,” says Whitman.
“And as we open that gateway through developing our sensory awareness, the world blossoms into a symphony of colors, scents, tastes, sounds, and touch.” – Kenton Whitman, naturalist, writer & educator
Continue reading OUTDOOR COFFEE MOMENTS
Mindset is your rudder in the boat of your life. –
Shan White, Life Coach
Let’s be the best version of ourselves, every day!
Let’s practise mindset work with specialty coffee!
Our mindset determines how we think about life, the world and how we deal with challenges. Often times we will not be able to change the situation. However, it’s up to us how we think about life challenges and how we respond to it.
Continue reading MINDSET FOR SUCCESS WITH SPECIALTY COFFEE
How people drink and enjoy coffee around the word differs greatly. I find it fascinating to explore various unique coffee drinking rituals.
For example, in Ethiopia – the birthplace of coffee – it is a long spiritual, sacred ceremony, which also includes the roasting of the beans.
In Turkey, the brew usually served from a long-handled copper pot called a cezve. According to a famous Turkish proverb: coffee should be ‘as black as hell, as strong as death and as sweet as love.’
However, for all coffee lovers around the world, drinking coffee is a mindful ritual that incorporates all five senses — sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. It’s about slowing down and living in the moment.
What makes a cup of coffee enjoyable for you? There are many factors such as the taste, the origin of the beans, the flavours, and aromas. An important factor is also the place, where we are drinking the coffee. From my own experiences, I can tell that a comfortable and inspiring place can add nearly 50% pleasure and joy.
Many people think that they can enjoy coffee to the fullest in a coffee-shop. But why don’t we create our own cozy coffee-drinking-atmosphere, no matter where we are at the moment. We do not need a good-looking, hipster, industrial-style, cozy, fancy cafe to enjoy coffee. We can create a wonderful atmosphere for ourselves at home, at work or while going on a hiking trip.
I created my own coffee-spots in various places around the world and during the last a couple months in Ireland. No matter where we are, a cup of coffee can be amazing ‘food for our soul’ :-).
We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting ~
Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese writer (1883- 1931)
Let’s experience the beauty of life – every moment! Let’s not wait for something to happen because the Now is all we have. Beauty happens all the time. 😊
We smell and sense the world around us every day. A lot of what we actually “taste” is done through smelling. Our sense of smell could be capable of so much more – if we would train it! George Dodd, who runs the Aroma Academy in Aberdeen, emphasizes: “People don’t realise that the sense of the smell is like a muscle. Use it or lose it.” Our noses are amazing. We just need to pay attention.
Continue reading COFFEE AROMA – SENSE OF SMELL
You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.
– Jon Kabat-Zinn, American professor emeritus
Self-awareness and management skills can be trained like a muscle. We can improve our awareness and understanding of our initial emotional responses, feelings and thoughts.
Thoughts can nourish or hurt us.
Positive thoughts chase away negative feelings.
Every day and every moment, we have a choice. We can choose to think negative, but we can also have a positive attitude. Circumstances that appear negative to us at first can be reframed, if we imagine positive outcomes. When we experience negativity inside or around us, we can do positive actions.
Taking ourselves out of a negative attitude is a possibility.
Mindful coffee moments can help us to slow down and to return to a more peaceful and present state of mind. While enjoying coffee we can reflect on the beauty of the ritual and how we feel about it through all of our senses.
There is a Cherokee legend about an elderly brave who tells his grandson about life.
“Son,” he says, “Within all of us there is a battle of two wolves. One is evil. He is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continued, “The other wolf is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.”
“The same fight is going on inside of you, and inside every other person, too,” explained the wise Cherokee elder.
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The grandfather simply replied, “The one you feed.”
Source: https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-legend-of-the-two-wolves/
Let’s enjoy mindful coffee moments to feed the ‘good wolves’ inside of us ?.
Every coffee-lover should have at least three coffee monkeys inside themselves. Each monkey has a different task. One focuses on tasting flavours. Another one explores the aromas with his/her nose. And one more monkey feels the body of the coffee.
All monkeys have to work together as a team with joy. People with a true passion for coffee take care of the monkeys inside of them. Otherwise, they would only consume coffee without enjoying it.
Continue reading THE ENERGY OF COFFEE
hat you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create. –Buddha
I am sure, everybody experiences moments during which we are unsure, if we are ready to start an activity or not. It could be – for example – our wish to try out a new coffee brewing method. In doing so, we could be wondering whether or not we have all the necessary information and skills to accomplish the task successfully. However, during such moments, our inferior thoughts create a mental blockade.
Thoughts have energy. Make sure your thoughts are positive and powerful. – Anonymous
A good advice is to replace these inferior thoughts with positive feelings, thoughts or actions! After all, feelings, thoughts and actions are all interconnected.
Therefore, let’s force ourselves to just act with a positive mindset. Let’s not overthink by trying to come up with the “right” way of doing it. Let’s not get overwhelmed and let’s be curious about what will happen 😊.
The law of the first step is quite simple. We will never achieve what is possible without taking the first step.
Source: Jon Mertz, The Law of the First Step, Thin Difference, February 23, 2019 https://bit.ly/2NBuIkY
