Learning to Enjoy Leisure: The Way Different Countries Drink Their Coffee

Visiting a foreign land for the first time and totally clueless about where to go or what to do first? Just find a local cafe. Whether its right as businesses and markets are opening, during the slow afternoon hours after busy people have gone back to their jobs, or late at night instead of hitting a bar, there’s always something to learn at a cafe. In fact, the best way to learn about the country or city you’re visiting is by hanging out, having a coffee, and looking around.

In fact, it’s easy to learn about a place by studying the caf? lifestyle. For example, if you’re in the United States, in most any city that’s not a New York or a San Francisco, you’re going to find that the way that most people do coffee is as fast as they possibly can. From driving through the window at the local Starbucks to a number of to-go options in malls and shopping centers, coffee isn’t so much an experience to be savored, but a substance to be consumed as quickly as possible. It seems that Starbucks has been responsible for introducing concepts like flavors and soy milk to suburban areas, though, and even Dunkin Donuts has had to step up their game and finally offer espresso.

A number of countries are rather relaxed, but others even elevate their culture from simply enjoyable to intellectually important. Over by the university on the left bank of Paris, a number of tourists flock to the cafes where Sarte and other existentialists wrote some of the most important books of the 20th century. In a city like Paris, the caf? lifestyle is about something more than just leisure. It’s about valuing the time to think and create on your own, but also thinking that is an exchange that can happen out in public.

Of course, hop across the pond to The United States, and you’re going to find that things are a little different. People actually go to drive-through windows at Starbucks because they don’t have the extra couple of minutes to get out of the car on the way to work, and even places like McDonald’s have taken to serving Newman’s Organic coffee because somehow Americans have learned that they like the taste of better coffee, but they don’t really understand that the taste is only half of the experience. So while you can get a decent cup of coffee even at a rest stop in New Jersey now, it doesn’t mean it comes with remotely the same ambiance as a country where the caf? lifestyle actually matters.

It’s pretty obvious how things work in The States when you realize that all your coffee comes with is a napkin or a dairy creamer. In other places, where you’re encouraged to sit and stay awhile, there’s practically a small spread presented with even the most regular cup of joe. In Buenos Aires, cookies, crackers, and some soda water come along, too. In Italy, at least a cookie is expected. In Holland, at least a couple of cookies come, too. And in Paris, if you’re going to a cafe to enjoy a coffee, you might actually save money by ordering it with some pastry or croissant item.

And that’s the thing about the caf? lifestyle: if you’re from a more rushed country, there’s something so amazingly freeing about having the time to just hang out and relax and observe somewhere else. Because if you’re used to coffee in a cardboard cup that doesn’t taste particularly great, it’s pretty amazing not just to taste genuinely coffee, but to actually change the pace of your life, even if it’s just for a vacation.

Perhaps some of that culture will rub off the places that it doesn’t exist already. Starbucks, after all, has made it acceptable to want something with espresso, and maybe the slow food movement in The States will carry over to beverages in public. A number of bloggers and internet fiends are making it slightly more acceptable to sit in a public place and still be a responsible adult, so long as there’s a computer in front of you and you look busy.

So the next time you’re on the road, be it in your own country or around the world, if you want to get to know a little more about the city or country you’re visiting, head to any old cafe. The best way to get acquainted, after all, is by steeping yourself in the caf? lifestyle. Who knows what traditions you might pick up and take home with you.

Damian Papworth adores coffee. As such he created the One Cup Coffee Makers website. Her you can read up on your 1 cup coffee maker