Frida’s coffee shop

Of all the places I’ve ever done gongfu tea, my very favorite is my uncle’s living room. A true tea connoisseur, he took a personal interest in educating me and my American partner about tea during our last visit to my hometown of Fuzhou.

And then again, I am ruining the Tea Road by being a complete coffee addict. Coffee is the fuel to a hard long day followed by a harder, longer night. Coffee is the cheap addiction to jumpstart mornings, to quicken afternoons, and to prolong midnights. The character of coffee is attitude, a swagger in which priorities have been predetermined.

Moving to Glasgow, Scotland for studies, the first thing I learned from one of my Scottish flatmate who is an artistic hound of the city was that there is no way you will drink from Starbucks or Costa around here if you visited Frida’s.

Vibrant, zealous, relentless

That summer, since I have been postponing on seeing who’s Frida and how good is her coffee, I decided to grab a bus and see with my own eyes (and taste) this mystique coffee shop she’s been telling me about. And there I am, talking with Frida, just in front of the coffee store, not even entering the place, and things are just delightful from the beginning.

She took pride in telling me how her mother keeps sending her different types and she asked me to choose the one we wanted. The first time I went with her favorite. The woman has some taste.

Surprise after surprise

Thereafter I would simply say “Surprise me.” She hated it when I said that. That made me want to say it even more. I think I was in her room all of 10 times if that. Yet it all mattered so much.

Coffee is the fuel to a hard long day followed by a harder, longer night. Coffee is the cheap addiction to jumpstart mornings, to quicken afternoons, and to prolong midnights. The character of coffee is attitude, a swagger in which priorities have been predetermined. Coffee is the cheap addiction to jumpstart mornings, to quicken afternoons, and to prolong midnights.

I know my scope is a big one, so maybe it’s hard to apply it to your life.

Maybe you have to worry about politics or process. The idea is to understand the “why” that is up in the clouds, and then be obnoxiously proficient at the “how” that is down in the dirt. No matter how narrow your scope is, there will always be stuff in the middle for you to trim away from your thought process.

Days in the morning light

The days I’ve gotten up late and eaten a junky breakfast, my day is usually sluggish and a bit depressing. However, when I wake up early and take the time to gently allow myself to come into the day, I know I have an awesome 24 hours ahead of me. I am so afraid to miss that fragment of vision, I will have to sketch it down immediately in my book. And this above, is that vision I have been keeping for a good timing.

There is no place like Frida’s

That summer, since I have been postponing on seeing who’s Frida and how good is her coffee, I decided to grab a bus and see with my own eyes (and taste) this mystique coffee shop she’s been telling me about. And there I am, talking with Frida, just in front of the coffee store, not even entering the place, and things are just delightful from the beginning.

She took pride in telling me how her mother keeps sending her different types and she asked me to choose the one we wanted. The first time I went with her favorite. The woman has some taste.