Coffee chronicles – blog post only for coffee-drinkers (and have a cup with you while reading)

The beginning

I come from a big coffee drinking country. We don’t grow coffee beans, don’t have any famous roasting companies, yet it is in our culture: even my 90-year old grandmother, living in a small village, can’t imagine a day without a good, strong coffee.

When I learned that my CSC assignment would be in South America (aka home of the coffee beans), I figured I will have plenty of opportunities to try fresh and local coffee. But when I arrived to Chile, Santiago to be more precise, soon I had to realize that Chileans simply don’t drink coffee. As strange as it sounds, this is the case – they don’t drink coffee, they prefer tea, hot chocolate, anything but coffee. So even in their capital city I had trouble finding a nice cup of espresso.

At that time I thought it was just the jetlagged me who couldn’t find the best cafés, but once in Arica, I’ll ask around. Silly, naïve me. I had to note to myself that I should never assume anything from any nation anymore. Drinking coffee is not for every culture. So I was in trouble. At least I was not alone, Janelle is also an every day coffee drinker, who understands that it is more than the simple need of caffeine, it is also a ritual and a way to make our days better and our minds calmer. Thank God we ended up in the same subgroup.

My coffees on the way from Budapest to Arica

The Coffee Ghosts

In China, alcoholics are called ghosts as they are addicted to the venomous liquid. When our team, who loves to banter, heard this story, our sweet, non-drinking Helen from Shanghai quickly got the nickname of ‘Ghost’.

It only took Santosh less than 12hours to apply the knowledge he recently acquired, he named Janelle and me the coffee ghosts. To this day, we resist to be addicts of coffee, but in a short moment of full honesty, he might be right with this.

When in Rome Arica

So Chileans are not coffee fans, to say the least. As a consequence they are not really good in making them either. The best we could get was instant americano. I rebelled, rejected to drink any and took an advice from our tea-drinking teammembers to have tea instead. Now please imagine that I, who drinks 3-4 cups of coffee every day and never leaves the house before having at least one good-morning-coffee, had to find a way to start my day without coffee. It was ugly. We had to find a solution. So I googled for the best coffee places in Arica and there was one that opened just 1 week before our arrival to the city and had one of the best coffee machines I’ve ever seen! YAY! And only 400meters away from the office! DoubleYAY! Haha, if only that was that easy. On our first day at the office, it turned out that we will be working in the secondary building, which is 3,6kms away from the best-ever-coffee-machine…

When we found the best place and had a good coffee for the first time in 4 days

The time when we made the Client wait for …. instant coffee

After all the struggles, we took every chance we had to have a decent coffee. Whenever we were in (or near) downtown we would go to our favorite place and order 2 cups each – una para tomar y una para llevar (one to sit with and one to go). On the Tuesday of the second week, we had a meeting in the central office, which meant COFFEE! But the schedule was so tight that in order to get coffee, Janelle and I had to make 5 men wait for us. So we quickly decided that instead of going to the best place, we will go for the second best, which is only 200meters away. So we ran in, asked for 2 café con leche para llevar, and expected our well-deserved paper cups when – to our utter shock – they handed us a big cup of steaming hot milk and 2 bags of instant coffee, with the italian espresso machine being only few centimeters away. Poor girl got so confused that she called his manager to talk to us. By that time we were able to tell them that we would like to ask for the espresso machine version. They looked surprised but switched on the machine and made us two really nice cups of coffee.

No coffee

Before coffee – After coffee

Chickas locas – the day of the morning coffee run

Our driver, Don Jorge, who comes and picks us up every day 8:30 sharp (btw this punctuality is basically nonexistent in Arica), couldn’t believe when Santosh told him that we left the hotel at 7:45, took a taxi to get coffee before getting to the office. Ever since, we are just chickas locas for him. In the sweetest way possible.

The afternoon of the very same day, our dear Client sat down with us, looking really blank, asking what this morning was about. We realized that unintentionally, we made him feel uncomfortable with something that was making perfect sense for us. And with that, we decided to skip the morning coffee run. We were depressed about it, but as were are both quite tough and determined, it was decided and end of discussion.

The next day we looked poor. Santosh was prepared that we would be less energetic (and less happy), but we tried our best. Clearly it was not good enough – our Client asked us 10 minutes in of the morning meeting if we are feeling sick or did we had something bad for dinner last week, because we look so different and not in a positive way. So we had a long discussion about what coffee means to us (luckily, he is a psychologist with a lot of patience and empathy), until he was convinced he cannot take coffee away from us. This was the point when our sweet Client and dearest driver, both of whom eventually gave up on understanding us, simply accepted that we need the coffee.

Yes, we run in the dark

The solution (sort of)

I’m not the one to give up easily, especially if we talk about something very important to me. I had to find a solution, I was so sure that it exists, but it took me 12days to find it. We tried to make amends with instant coffee, which was even more difficult than I’d expected. We tried to order coffee to our office, but such thing doesn’t exist here. We tried coffee in the hotel, which was worse than instant coffee. We also tried going for a run every morning to see if has the same affect on us (the answer is No). And then, out of the sudden, I find a forum where someone shared how he survived in Arica – with a tiny little coffee shop we pass by EVERY SINGLE DAY. I got too excited but didn’t want to get Janelle’s hopes up just yet. So I did my research. The place is really on our way to the office. It has a nice coffee machine based on their pictures on social media. They open at 8:15 on weekdays. And they have a telephone number on their webpage. All of these are completely unusual in Arica. At this point, I had to tell Janelle. We were in a taxi heading to this tiny place within 10minutes. And it was amazing!

Being us, the efficient IBMers, we agreed with the coffee lady that moment that from now on, every day at 8:35 we will stop by to get 2 coffees to go – while our driver is waiting for us with the engines on. She laughed but agreed. And from that Thursday, we were greeted with our precious morning coffee. Except for those days when the coffee lady doesn’t open at 8:15 (not even at 10:05), because she has to drive her son to college. But it’s Chile, we know these things can happen.

THE solution – no wonder we didn’t find it easily, right?

Ah, I guess I write as I talk – way too long. Yet this is only about one third of our stories. Let’s call it Coffee Chronicles I. Those of you who ask what Santosh, our not coffee ghost teammember has to say about this, please do not worry. He is being really sweet about it towards us, and I bet he is having a great deal of fun of us with his friends. 😀

Happy IMA team

We do know how to share, coffee is not only for IMA team, I got to surprise Debbie with a really great latte and she was so touched we hugged for at least a full minute.

Coffee selfie

Did I mention that one good coffee costs more than a whole meal with entrée and second course?

I hope you enjoyed and worth shipped every sip of that cup of coffee that you have in your hands.