Strangely Familiar

We’re standing in the kitchen area of our little Hostal Don Juan apartment in Alcalá on the outskirts of Madrid. The InZone dream team has been reunited from Berlin and is swimming through version 5 of our PowerPoint for tomorrow’s presentation on training interpreter’s in zones of conflict and war. It’s 9 pm and we are far off from dinner – even by Spanish standards, we will dine late tonight.

I’m fairly principled in my habits of only drinking one – at most two – coffees a day and ensuring both of these are imbibed before midday, but tonight I pull out all the stops. Tonight, I pull out my emergency coffee geek gear that I’m now grateful to have packed.

To the delight of my colleagues – and the chagrin of the solitary Nescafé sachet that sits discarded on the kitchen counter (should Nescafé have any emotions or soul) – I pull out the Aeropress, the Hario hand-grinder, the pocket scale, and the ziplock full of personally roasted Yirgacheffe Kochere beans. We’re going to make it through.

My interpreter colleagues are relieved that the other profession I straddle involves quality coffee and are already visibly energized just by the sight of me grinding the coffee. In this sparsely equipped Spanish hostel kitchenette, I make due with a cooking pot to heat the water and avail myself of a Moka pot I stumble upon to serve as a pouring device.

The water heats and the badly insulated cooking pot threatens to burn my fingers. I grab the kitchen towel and attempt to sculpt it into an oven mitt with which to take hold of the hot pot and pour out the water. I glance over at Leïla – the one who has surely also experienced questionable make-shift coffee while working in the refugee camps of Kenya – and I look back at my make-shift coffee brewing set-up here in a backstreet of Alcalá.

The sight of it reminds me of my first days in Moshi, Tanzania. I get a flashback to the bright green plastic sieve I discovered worked quite nicely as a decanter for my coffee – brewed in an oversized cooking pot. I look down at this kitongoji duni style coffee and I smile at the parallels across the world. We really enjoyed that make-shift cup of coffee. There was something warm in the strangely familiar.

The next day we find ourselves – post-presentation and mid-way through a 10-hour day of panels and plenaries on Public Service interpreting at the Universidad d’Alcalá – in desperate need of good coffee – or any coffee really – to keep us going for the remaining few hours. I’d already discovered excellent coffee at San Diego Coffee Corner on my way in that morning and so I lead my colleagues like the Pied Piper back to the little hole in the wall where I’ve already begun getting my loyalty card stamped.

My new barista friend indulges me in another Flat White while Alice changes her order when she sees what I’m getting. Leïla goes for the Cappuccino Chai Canela. Barista San Diego corrects my explanation to Alice that a Flat White is actually a double espresso with cream.

My mouth drops. Cream. That doesn’t seem right.

We negotiate our way through the semantics and definitions and I discover that when I say microfoam and San Diego says cream, we are actually referring to the same thing. He won’t have any of my ‘microfoam’ lingo though. But that’s OK – this funny back and forth is allowing a particular South African memory to drift to the surface of my coffee memory pool.

I recall sitting in a Port Elizabeth coffee shop and attempting to order a Flat White off their menu, only to be told – ‘one Cappuccino’ – which I tried to correct – only to be served ‘one Cappuccino’ – which I try to send back but get told ‘yes! Cappuccino? Flat White? Same thing!’ I wonder why it’s differentiated on the menu and just have to laugh as I indulge them in enjoying this newly invented African Flappuccino.

I look down at this Spanish Flat White, with its cream/microfoam sombrero and I smile at the parallels across the world. We really enjoyed those micro-cream coffees today. There was something warm in the strangely familiar.