Espresso. Americano. Double-shot.
There are three things he at least loves about coffee. Aroma, flavor, and caffeine. Just like the life from behind his glasses: it’s about Love, Dream, and Pain. Aroma is like the Love; in which it is responsible for the flavor, and therefore, is the most important attribute to specialty coffee. Love, hence, is a one emotion that brings us to our existence. Love of a mother, a couple, and to each other. It’s the bond that binds us together.
Flavor is the Dream; it gives you the experience of mild, smooth, and even bold. Then along comes the mouthfeel… Bitter? Sweet? Acid? Plain? Dream keeps us alive. Keep us going on even when we feel like we’re giving up. It gives us hope, that there’s perhaps someone, something, that somehow waits for us by the end of our journey.
Caffeine is about the pain; it keeps us awake, and to some extent, it becomes the insomniac itself. It is addictive, and we can’t run away from it, even we know we want to, and we have to. Just like the pain. Love gives us life, dream keeps us alive, but pain.. it helps us realizing that we’re alive. It stings every now and then, it brings tears, it keeps us awake during our lonely night, and we feel the pain inside our chest… but it’s there to help us stronger. It helps us treasuring what we have. Pain is just tragically beautiful.
Latte. Macchiato. Misto.
He stared at a blank point in front of him. Someone somewhere he didn’t know when, had discovered the miracle of a mixture of milk and coffee. It sure adds the fun of drinking coffee.
Mix 1/3 coffee with 2/3 milk, and voila, you have Latte. Mix it 50-50, then you have Misto. When you only use the milk as a stain? You’ll have what they label as Macchiato. But… where’s the coffee?
When milk is bargaining the dark and black coffee to a brownish beverage, is the coffee gone? Is the milk gone? Or they’re just trying to compromise, to make a room for each other in a claustrophobic cup? Or, they’re just getting married, and living their own happily ever after, without even asking who’s who?
Is it just like us? That when you’re deep in love with someone, something, does it mean that you’re slowly, but surely, losing yourself?
We wake up in the morning, and the first person we’re thinking about is him. The first person we’d want to find is him. We wonder if he has a good night sleep, a sweet dream, and if he sees us in his dream. We can’t sleep without him beside us in the night. And the next thing we know is, we plan our life,your future, and he is one of the variables we’d like to consider. Before we even realize, we’d find ourselves not being able to live a day without him. For to love someone so madly, so deeply, and so truly, it means that we’d have to put aside your feeling, doesn’t it? And we’d try to understand him more and more everyday. This is when Math can’t explain why Two could become One.
Flat white. Frappuccino. Cappuccino.
Is it true? Or is it just this silly lover-bird concept?
Wait. Is it stupid to fall for someone so deeply, so madly, so truly to the extent that you’re just losing yourself? Or is it just not possible to lose yourself, for we all are these selfish jerks who wrap ourselves in a nice outfit, so that the wolf inside us would look like a sweet sheep outside? That somehow, we’re still ourselves, and we’re just trying to make room for him in our heart, from a guest to a permanent resident to a citizen… while at the same, we’re also preparing our heart for him leaving when it gets so claustrophobic?
Love….really, how can you measure it if it’s supposed to be un-measured-able?
He sighed and sighed. It’s been an hour or so, he guessed.
As much as he wanted a YES for the question, he knew that deep inside, people never really lose themselves in the name of love.
Kopi luwak. Kopi tubruk. Kopi Sumatera.
Because if we’re to lose ourselves, then why we put so many labels around us?
Put coffee beans to a hot water. The water turns black, and we don’t call it water. Put milk in the coffee, then we’d have latte, macchiato, or misto. Somehow, we fail to see the true identity within: the water. Coffee is just water. Milk is just water. And they’re just label.
The labels further then create barrier to anything around us. We can’t mix tea with coffee, because the two don’t mix. We can’t mix Kopi Luwak with instant coffee. We can’t even brew coffee with cold water. Whereas we know, they’re all just water.
It’s like us. Even when we know it’s only LOVE we’re talking about, it is known that a love between two males is wrong – or to put in a lighter word, not normal. Beyond the gender, beyond the tradition, it’s simply love. Why is it that the kind of love is forbidden?
Coffee. Tea. Milk.
He’s tired.
And he found himself staring back at him from the glass-wall beside him: a dark and black coffee on the surface. Inside? A bitter person who probably had forgotten how to be happy. A caffeinated insomniac who chose not to sleep in the night, for the loneliness was actually that creepy from him. A damaged person who so desperately wanted to run away, to escape, and to deny from and about himself. A silly lover who foolishly fell for tea, despite he knew that there’s no any chance that they could be together.
So he grabbed the menu list once again.
He looked at the coffee list, and the tea list.
This time, he ordered a cup of hot water.
