The Price of Coffee

What are you paying for when you buy a cup of coffee? I’m on decaf at the moment, and so it isn’t even for the stimulation.

• I buy it for the peace.

• I pay for the experience.

• I love the safe, professional, polite, and public interaction with my (special-needs, in the case of a recent coffee from a CIC in Oxford, also available in Witney: check for your local availability and be kind.) barista.

• I support the local economy, wherever that location may be.

Maybe you buy it:

• to spend time with your granddaughter,

• work in silence,

• get away from distractions,

• Feel safe.

The coffee isn’t the point. It’s like a haircut.

While on a local ‘holiday’ today, I had time to get a proper haircut. My barber took the time to ensure that when I left, I was more confident. I was less stressed. My headache, which I had been suffering from today due to dehydration, warm weather, and a perilously delayed train journey the night before, dissipated.

That’s why I was happy to pay. As Our Lord said, the labourer is worthy of their hire.

In this world we have toil and trouble, and we know the bad and good. I know this more than most of my socioeconomic class, perhaps. At least I have seen some of the depravity of which human beings are capable: if I didn’t know Any Better, I might be more sorely tempted to stoop to those depths myself.

A cup of coffee is not just a drink: it’s a chance, to re-birth, re-fresh, re-new; live again. It is only temporary. Life is - or can be - eternal.

References:

The Four Canonical Gospels of Our Lord Jesus Christ, presented in the Christian Bible (available from all good booksellers, and some bad ones). I recommend all the teachings of This Rabbi of Nazareth - my spiritual master - though I struggle at times to follow them. I am human: He is divinely so.

(The late) Prof. Clayton Christensen, of Harvard Business School. He studied in Oxford for a time, from where I am writing this piece — with a coffee, in a reusable coffee mug from Jericho Coffee Traders, at the Weston Library — and wrestled with God to define his calling. His work on jobs-to-be-done has influenced me greatly, since I studied it during my Master’s degree course at the University of Warwick: Warwick Business School.

Further commendation:

My friend, Toby (Tobes) Williams is the founder of Fiwi Coffee. Fiwi means something like ‘together’, ‘unity’, ‘one-ness’ in Jamaican Patwa. He sells beans from African and Caribbean producers: I have it on good authority that it is good coffee. Even to my limited taste, it seems nice.

Jeff accepts no liability for any bad advice. Drink hot drinks - or cold, as I have been today - with appropriately due attention and care for your environment and the others who inhabit it. Jeff’s insurance covers his coaching practice. Creative writing is - and perhaps should be - much more free, and this piece at least is deliberately freely available.

Jeff is currently on holiday. He wrote this during a moment’s respite.