3:36 pm

It was precisely 3:36 pm on a Friday afternoon in early summer. It was 3:36 pm in three very different locations, and though the same thing occurred at once in three places, it wasn’t at all at the same time, because there was a time difference. But still, the same thing occurred in three places and it was precisely 3:36 pm.

3:36 pm in Addis Ababa is a chaos and a noise. All the chaos whirls together like dust up into a tornado and creates one unified hum of a noise that encapsulates every frequency being emitted at the same time. It is all-consuming and overwhelming – unless you are from Addis. Abeye was from Addis. He stood on the 8th floor in the exporter’s office and poured 97ºC water from a kettle with a fine and elegant spout over grounds of fresh local coffee. He stood before the expansive open window that looked out over the streets of Addis, where evening traffic was already beginning to pick up. The coffee on the wooden ledge before him the only thing between him and the heaving city below. Eight stories down and still the tornado of noise piped up the chaos to eye level. All that stood between him and chaos was the coffee.

3:36 pm in London is no calmer than most any other hour of the day in the great capital city. The River Thames – as it slinks its way down toward the ocean – last sees calm at Barnes or Putney before taking on an entirely different character – its shores heaving with tourists and over-busy Londoners. Peter was one of them. It was market day at Borough Market and he had been manning the coffee cart since 7 that morning – meticulously pulling shots for the throngs of the thirsty. Just shy of an hour from being able to pack it in, he focused on the coffee before him so as to drone out the loud bustle of customers and passersby on the other side of the coffee and the cart. As he poured the 97ºC water over the grounds of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe he watched the steam rise from the bloom in the filter and watched it haze up the faces on the other side of the coffee and the cart. All that stood between him and chaos was the coffee.

3:36 pm in my kitchen and I’m performing a ritual that belongs to my early morning. I don’t drink coffee after midday – and yet I find myself pouring the 97ºC water over the grounds of my coffee for the love of the ritual only. I pour and rhythmically, methodically move the kettle in a swirling pattern over the pour-over filter. The aroma wafts up in the steam and quiets the chaos in my mind – the one born out of the chaos outside the four walls of my kitchen. All that stands between me and chaos is the coffee.