New Moon Coaching for Expat Women

My husband and I walk into a café (no, this isn’t the start of a joke). In front of us, five people are diligently lined up at the register to order. A distinguished gentleman in his seventies with a cashmere scarf and a newspaper under his arm; two girls wearing college hoodies, chatting without pausing for breath; a fifty-year-old with a laptop bag slung over his shoulder; and a guy who looks like he just finished a five-mile run, cradling a blue water bottle in his arms. The cashier is a cold-looking type in his thirties with platinum blonde hair and eyebrows, who speaks politely to everyone but never smiles. Behind the counter with him is the barista, a lanky guy with a thin ponytail and a beard too sparse for its length. The orders follow one after another—American coffee, matcha latte, and kombucha—as the communication between customers, cashier, and barista flows smoothly. The line moves quickly until it’s our turn.

“Two espressos and a croissant.”

And here, the gears that had worked perfectly until now between order and execution suddenly grind to a halt. The barista begins to perform a series of precise, calibrated actions to produce the finest cup of coffee known to man: he scoops a ladle of beans from an aluminum bag, checks the water temperature in the machine’s reservoir, grinds the beans, checks the water pressure, weighs the resulting powder, re-checks the water temperature, re-checks the pressure, places the cup under the spout, presses the button, and voilà—the first espresso is ready. He sets it aside. He clears the grounds from the portafilter, rinses it under the tap, checks the temperature, weighs the powder, checks the pressure, fills the filter, re-checks the temperature, places a second cup under the spout, re-checks the pressure, presses the button, and the second coffee is also ready.

My husband and I watch the entire process with playful attention, carried out with an attitude of scientific precision mixed with sacredness. There is no need to taste the two coffees to know that both—the hot one and the now-cold one—will have the same sour taste as always. Two undrinkable coffees for the modest sum of seven dollars plus tip.

Why do we persist in exposing ourselves to this refined system of torture? Behind the simple act of going to a bar for a coffee, there is an entire world of meaning made of memories collected over time: cities, faces, seasons, and circumstances. We are chasing the ghost of a memory: the sound of a saucer hitting a marble counter, the aroma of Arabica coffee, the chatter in the background that bursts into laughter, the briefest ‘Ciao’ from an acquaintance…

Certain things make us feel at home, even at the cost of a bad cup of coffee.

What ‘sour coffee’ are you currently drinking just to feel a little closer to home? Are there habits that are cultural specific to your home country that you wish you could maintain in your new life abroad? Share them in the comment section.