For quarantine last week, I introduced the daughters to a famously temperamental basketball coach known for his adversarial relationship with writers. One thing led to another, an old chair was thrown and an obscenely under-funded video was produced.
I’ve been trying to brand the communication side of the business with the tagline, “You do great things. I do your writing.”
Perhaps more appropriate for COVID: “Creating low-budget videos using the app that came with my phone (the writing, though!).”
Would you do me a favor?
Join the CoffeeJosh mailing list. It’s hurry-free, spam-free and also free … free. As a thanks, I’ll send you a PDF — you guessed it, free — that has 10 of the best coffee shop orders in the Spokane area. (All 10 are drinks and treats local coffee shop owners make for themselves. In this case, expect to pay for your order and feel like it was totally worth it.)
One of my all-time favorite gifts was a few simple words placed in a frame. Pictured below, it’s a reminder my wife had custom-designed for me by our friend, Brittany White. This is the story behind it …
I was Skyping with a pastor in Uganda who has become a dear friend. Ronald’s church was preparing to take a pair of special offerings. One was for an 11-year-old girl whose leg was being eaten from the inside by a parasite and would need to be amputated if funds could not be raised for medical treatment. The other was for a region a couple hours south of his church that was especially hard hit by this year’s dry season. He was asking his people to give money, food — whatever they could.
Visiting Ronald’s church in Uganda
“People are literally starving,” the pastor told me. “What is very sad is that the government is not coming in to help. But we have a responsibility as Christians to come in and help.”
“I’m sorry, I’ve got to stop you right there,” I said. “You’ve told me a good offering at your church is $20. The vast majority of your congregation is unemployed. Why would your church help? Don’t you have enough needs of your own?”
Pastor Ronald laughed.
View overlooking Fort Portal, Uganda.
“In America, you have an expression that doesn’t make sense to us in Uganda: ‘You are what you eat.’ If that was true, we would all be matooke — a field of matooke. But we have a similar expression in Rutooro: ‘Oli eki ekyokugamba oli.’ It means, ‘You are what you say you are.’
“When I have visited America, I have been amazed at all the generous people. But there are also some people who always think they need more. My goodness, there are children who are complaining they have six pairs of shoes, and they want daddy to buy them another pair. I have some children whose Sunday best is barefoot, and they are walking 5 to 10 miles to church barefoot in the rain. Sometimes on empty stomachs.
“If you are materially wealthy, if you have six pairs of shoes, but deep inside yourself you still think of yourself as poor, it is very hard to give. You never go beyond what you think you are.
“But it is possible to be rich from the inside, even if you do not have much. Even if you don’t have shoes. The Bible talks about being faithful with much — or with little. We are accountable to be faithful with what we have.
“There are people who materially they are rich, but they are poorer than anyone you can think of, because they think it is all about me. Being rich comes from the heart, not from the outside. When you view your wealth as coming from the outside, you begin to see you are not rich enough. You find a hurting person and don’t even help. You think of yourself instead, because you say, ‘I do not have enough.’
“‘Oli eki ekyokugamba oli.’ You are what you say you are.”
Being rich comes from the heart, not from the outside.
Pastor Ronald, Uganda
Whenever I visit and hear him speak, I like the way Pastor Ronald talks about Jesus, whose humble birth similarly turned the definition of riches on its head. He told the rich young ruler to give everything away, lectured on greatness by washing dirty feet and built a Kingdom not with palaces and power but with grace and truth and love.
In short, he knew we needed help with that ultimate definition we all grapple with: our identity, our “oli eki ekyokugamba oli.” Oh, to be rich from the inside.
While you’re here, would you do me a favor?
If you enjoy articles like this one, join the CoffeeJosh mailing list. It’s hurry-free, spam-free and also free … free. As a thanks, I’ll send you a PDF — you guessed it, free — that has 10 of the best coffee shop orders in the Spokane area. (All 10 are drinks and treats local coffee shop owners make for themselves. In this case, expect to pay for your order and feel like it was totally worth it.)
Before Mr. Coffee drip-dropped this morning’s pot, or your favorite barista handed you your latte …
Before 12-ounce bags stocked grocery shelves, or your local roaster supplied the neighborhood drive-thru …
Before the beans were roasted brown or even came to town …
Where do coffee babies come from?
When we are wide-eyed and just entering the world of coffee, it’s a question we seldom ask. Maybe hot dogs taught us not to meddle in origin stories.
So we sip along in blissful naivete. For all we know, the Great Coffee Stork visits expectant baristas each morning, pecking at the drive-thru window with a bag tagged “Joe.” (Unfold the bundle and — voilà! — a piping-hot, ready-to-pour pot.)
As with most stork fables, the truth is a bit seedier — as in coffee seeds (or beans) that gestate hundreds of miles from your café inside the cherry of a cantankerous plant.
Arabica, Robusta and their 120 (mostly Madagascan) cousins
The brown-black brew we enjoy today is part of a genus of flowering plants called coffea. Grown in tropical climates, only two of the 120-plus coffea species have truly been commoditized. (True story: Most of the rest can only be found in the wilds of Madagascar, where a giraffe named Melman and a zebra named Marty are still working on preparing them for market.)
Let’s focus on the two that may have actually made their way into your mug:
1. Coffea Arabica (aka the Spoiled Diva)
This fussy tree boasts a thin trunk with lots of branches to support blossoms and fruit. It only grows at elevated altitudes, is susceptible to getting the sniffles, and expects to be treated like a fragile heirloom. And we oblige! People fawn over Princess Arabica. The beans she produces are used for the most sought-after brews in the world and are why you’ll often hear coffee marketers boast, “100% Arabica.”
2. Coffea Canephora (aka the Hardy Peasant Boy)
This species is better known by its nickname, “Robusta,” a term that reflects its greater resiliency. It yields more coffee for cheaper, is resistant to pests and disease, and grows in lower altitudes and higher temperatures. It’s also known for its distinctive “kick,” described as “eww bitter,” “burnt rubber,” or “smells like potatoes,” depending on your favorite internet commentator. Also part of that kick: Up to twice the caffeine as Arabica, making it the favorite of late-night diners and early-morning instant coffee (which typically is Robusta — plus just enough Arabica to take the edge off).
Left to my own mnemonic devices, this is how I keep the two straight:
Arabica Cadabica — tastes like magic.
Robusta Combusta — tastes likes scorched earth.
But before we deliver an elitist snub to Robusta, we would do well to trace some lineage. A March 2020 article in “Nature Research Journal” links Arabica’s genetic roots to a single plant. This “parent” plant is itself the result of a “speciation event” (science talk for when plants … you know …) between coffea eugenioides and coffea canephora (Robusta).
That’s right, our hardy peasant boy has been unmasked as a long-lost leading man, with every right to return every Arabica coffee snob’s taunt with a simple retort: “Who’s your daddy?”
