ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the experience of coffee drinking, both alone and with others, can be a creative activity that helps us to engage ourselves and others in a particularly meaningful and pleasing manner. Coffee was first discovered in Ethiopia about a millennium ago. It has had a fascinating "ideologically-freighted" history which has been explicated by a number of social historians, including the story of the modern specialty coffee industry which has gripped the imagination and tastes of billions of people worldwide. The meaning of the yearning for morning coffee must be understood as something other than simply a "mind-racing, jump-start" caffeine craving. Coffee is an experience, an offer, a rite of passage, a good excuse to get together. Drinking coffee presents a glorious moment when we feel awakened to the concealed vitality and hope that is embedded in longing for the perfect cup with the perfect friend.
