At the beginning it was nothing more than a bitter taste – not a need, no routine, but simply curiosity for what the whole world seemed to be in need of daily. But the sense for the taste and the expectations grew constantly until the pleasure and the quality became the priority. And Aristippos – the coffee drink – was born.
Aristippos from Cyrene (435-355 BC) knew how to enjoy philosophically without losing himself and used pleasure as a means of rising spirit and mind. True joy and inner peace imply having the insight that enables the individual not to become a slave of pleasure. This was his thought. He taught his daughter Areté – the first declared woman philosopher – and she taught her son, Aristippos the Younger, who further developed the teaching of hedonism with Epikur from Samos.
Wisdom, the depth, height and width of being as a whole and the love towards being it, could be expressed symbolically by handling raw materials in a creative, thoughtful and careful manner. Coffee provides one of the most multi-layered ways of expressing ones love for wisdom. From growing the plant – based on soil, geography and height – to harvesting the fruit, preparing and drying it, then roasting it and finally the grinding and the process of making a drink, coffee should NEVER end as a mere black brew.
Early thinkers viewed alchemy as the philosophy of nature. Just take the wonderful scent of Vanilla and the so loved smell and taste of coffee. In terms of these fantastic scents and tastes, nature could have never made it on its own. The fruit of an orchid must be pollinated by bees or hummingbirds. The harvesting of the fruit must take place just in the very short time in which is ripe, but not open. This vanilla capsule must be then put in hot water to stop it from growing further, before it gets hours of massage from human hands and ferments, becoming black, in order to reach the wonderful scent we know as vanilla. The coffee berries suffer just as much, before becoming coffee beans as we know and love them. They may not experience the heat of water, but the heat of fire is inevitable for their taste.
Nature and culture, they might not be such a contradiction, as some may claim.
