One of the joys (and occasional confusion) or spending time in different countries is to observe how something as apparently universal as coffee can be addressed so differently.
In France, ordering coffee, it is almost never the coffee itself, it is approximately the moment, the ritual, the roast. You feel, you order a coffee (which, by default, means a small and strong espresso), and they drink it slowly, sometimes about a newspaper, or simply looking at the world to drift. No one hastened and you don’t do it in a cup of paper and run to the following. In fact, à Emporter (to carry), is still a relatively new concept and, in many places, still frowned upon. Coffee is not a means to an end. It is the end in itself.
Compare this with the United Kingdom, where culture is up to date with the lifestyle of coffee in Europe, but it still carries the distinctive seal of utility. Coffee is fuel, you drink it on the fly, you drink it highly on your desk, or you align at school with half an eye on your phone. It is not that the British do not enjoy the flavor (Althegh, historical, coffee in the United Kingdom was not much of what to write), but the emphasis is on comfort. The main street is dominated by food chains, the cups are the size of small cubes and there is rarely a dish in sight.
And then there is the United States, where coffee culture has tasks for its own identity. It is performative, personalized; You ask for what you want, how you want it and when you want it, at speed. Oat milk, half-caf, ice cream with caramel drizzle? Absolutely. The cafeteria is an extension of the house and the office: it can stay for hours with its laptop, use the Wi-Fi, plug the wall and nobody makes fun of a eyelid.
The French would probably be horrified. Here is almost the opposite; You feel at a table, it is even only for an espresso thimble, I change, they give you time. No one moves you and nobody hastened you. But there is a contract not seen: it is here to be present, not plugged in and, therefore, laptops and phones are not the standard. Coffee is a scenario for real life, not a remote work.
And maybe that is what is reduced. The coffee culture reflects broader ideas about how we chose to live. Are we consuming for a purpose or a pause for pleasure? Is the cup in our hand a tool to spend the day, or an excuse to leave or for a few minutes?
That does not mean that one is better than the other, just like where he was born should not determine how he lives. But these quiet and apparently inconsciousness things; The way we have our coffee, how we greet our neighbors, whether we walk or drive, say much more than we think of the rhythm, values, about culture.
So, everything I feel on a terrace with a small cup of porcelain, without hurry, without Wi-Fi, reminds me that, at least sometimes, it is good to let the coffee be destiny. Perhaps this is one of the many benefits of moving abroad for a while; The way your habits change without you being useless. You begin to taste things differently, you stop apologizing for being still, ‘unlearn’ the urgency.
When I moved to France for the first time, I could not understand how people taught so much during lunch, or how a single espresso coffee could last a complete conversation. Now, I find it difficult to hurry through a coffee to take without feeling a little deceived. Something that used to be transactional has become intentional. And that change, however small, changes the texture of your day.
Living abroad does not mean completely reinventing yourself. Only means let the new ways of life rub you, until one day you realize that you are not the same as you. You still love a good cup of coffee, but maybe now, you drink it. And perhaps that is the true differentiation in coffee culture.
