Coffee Has Always Meant Being With Someone

When my grandmother made her instant Maxwell House, she would pour a splash of coffee into a white ceramic mug for me and fill the rest with milk. I was five, maybe. I don’t remember whether it tasted good, but I remember loving that I was drinking it with her.

Later, a café opened down the street from my high school. My sister — a senior with a driver’s license — would leave school during breaks and bring back mocha lattes for us. One day, when she delivered my cup (I was a freshman without such privileges), a classmate said, “Wow. Your sister must really love you.”

Eventually I graduated to black coffee, poured from the pot my parents brewed each morning and transferred into travel mugs as we rushed out the door.

Coffee, like food or wine, is rarely just about the drink itself. It is a pretext for gathering. After a small ritual of preparation, it sustains conversation. It is a shared affection across the world, among people who might otherwise have nothing in common.