Coffee & Gambling

by austin p

Throughout high school and college I tried a lot of things, good and bad. Once my era of compulsion came to a close, few rocks remained unturned, except two glaring excpetions. Coffee, and gambling. Passion and compulsion are often woven together and often confused. I found I dove into unhealthy obsessions with almost anything I enjoyed. I enjoyed fine tobacco, until one summer I became a serious chain smoker. When I discovered baby corn in the Cheyenne-Arapaho dining hall I created a salad exclusively comprised of mini-cobs and it was a dietary staple for a period. I quit drinking alcohol all together for years. Then I realized for myself (which is not true for all), that in order to learn true self-discipline, I needed not abnegation, but moderation.

So as I learned moderation, I experimented. I tried poker and found the same effect as video games...something others had addiction to, but I was safe from. Not because of my self-control, but because of sheer displeasure from how terribly unskilled I was. Then came coffee, which to this day, I never consume in large quantities. Maybe that is because the first cup of coffee I ever had was a dry-processed Arabian coffee, which is a very special, complex cup...that set the standard very high. That was the day I fell in love with coffee as an act of worship.

Coffee is a special thing and one of my best friend's, Paul Smith, is a professional coffee roaster. He is the man most responsible for me appreciating how one beverage can be such an intricate act of worship and also that we all find different ways to savor God. Donald Miller's book Blue Like Jazz tells the title story as a time when Miller saw a man playing the saxophone on a street corner. Miller cannot play the saxophone, but he saw why you can love it, because the man did not open his eyes for 15 minutes. That is how I see Paul with fine food. I do not understand it like he does, but watching him love it, makes me appreciate God. So I have asked Paul to write a little bit about his love of coffee. It will be posted this month.