111 Cultural Post #4

[Daniel Matthew Kunath]

In one of my conversations with Smaragda, we talked about how Greek and Americans perceive coffee. I had never put much thought into this topic before, but she asked me why Americans would think that there could be such a thing as “regular coffee.” She contends that there cannot be such a thing, since espressos, cappuccinos, lattes, filter coffee, Greek coffee, and other variations are all just parts of a subset in a category called “coffee.” In Greece, such an idea is unthinkable, and someone who asks for “regular” coffee would be treated with a blank stare or a restated question. We did our research, and learned that while many different countries influenced Greece’s coffee habits, America’s came only from England or France in 1773, and those countries produced filter coffee. Most of the others didn’t come along and become recognized until centuries later, when the idea of what coffee is had been firmly fixed in the American mind. I continue to be amazed at how differently two cultures can perceive something so simple as coffee. I still have a lot to learn, even when I thought I had a pretty good handle on Greek culture.