A great New Year idea. Drink coffee with friends at home again. Good for your wallet and to restore conversation.

A few weeks ago I responded to an invitation to attend a meeting of a group of people from the Philippines. Even a more than delicious self-made Filipino lunch was included. It became a welcoming meeting and experience with some nice insights and ideas.

At some point the conversation was about how you could save money and also be able to make a better connection with people around you.

One of the young ladies in the group commented that an easy solution was to start to drink coffee with your friends again at home instead of going to the Starbucks. The coffee at home was even better as well and being at home the atmosphere was much more inviting to real connection and conversation. For a short moment it was silence, changing in laughter. I laughed as well. Indeed not a bad idea.

I think every company and I guess here every Thai thinks that you can earn lots money on coffee. Yes I think Starbucks indeed is a success story so far.

Where I live, on a daily base more and more coffee shops arise. Offering coffee nearly on every corner of the street it seems. As if everyone is longing to want to drink coffee every minute of the day. However, most shops remain empty most of the day.

And the clever concept of Starbucks seems to be more about being visible behind the large windows for others and the selfies that you can share on the social media than about the quality of the coffee. People hiding behind laptops or sucked into their tablets or I-Phones. More and more my experience is that ‘refined’ workspaces are offered where people do nearly not have face-to-face conversation, and holding their cardboard cups with large logo’s, are not even being aware they are drinking, enjoying and even tasting coffee. Willing to pay a lot.  

I think the young Filipino lady made a point. I remember how neighbors, the milkman, the baker and the farmer who once a week came to pick up the leftovers from the kitchen and dinners for his pigs, took a break and joined around my mother's table. Mom's 'coffee shop' was always open. Her super quality 'Koetosari coffee', yes, my father was once the main representative of it, praises and stories about everything that happened in our families, our environment, our country and also what was known that time about what was going on in the world. Yes, they each other and there was energy flow between them.

And that drinking coffee? That did not cost so much. Oh well, a special paper coffee filter, dune water from the tap, a little gas to boil the water and of course the beans milled by my oldest brother with the (hand) coffee grinder. You actually let people look in your kitchen and living room. Very normal hospitality at that time. Now that I type this, that blissful feeling comes back to me and I even smell the coffee again.

She is right that Filipino young lady, connection and saving money. A great and valuable thing to drink coffee at home with friends and acquaintances again. An invitation to taste, connect and have a good conversation about everything going on in your life and in the world around.

An answer to save money, enjoy even better coffee and restore connection and conversation.

Gangey Gruma (Frans Captijn)

Captijn Insight. Catalyst in developing tranquility & in-sight to get in a sustainable way real connection, purpose, pleasure and flow in life, love, family, business, career and work again.

captijninsight@gmail.com