Me, My Father, and a Cup of Coffee

I love coffee, more and more if it is black and hot. Well, I can say I don't really like "kopi banci" sold in most franchise coffee shop. I prefer to brew my coffee in a simple "kopi tubruk" way, the way most Malayans do to drink it. Sometimes I also like another way of brewing coffee like with Vietnam drip or French press, but it is such a rare moment for me to drink it because I have to go to coffee shop that costs much.

I don't really sure how I get the fondness for coffee. May be it derives from my father. He is such a kopi tubruk addict. When I was a kid and used to live with my parents, I counted how many times he drank it. I got 3 times: in the morning before he left for his school -my father is a teacher and soon to be retired-, in the afternoon when he had been home and got lunch, and in the evening after he prayed. Now as I am growing up, I realize that the number probably bigger since he also drinks coffee at school in I-do-not-know number of glass -he drinks cofee in glass, not a cup-.



There are so many memories kept in my mind related to this coffee-and-father thing. One of them is when I was six to eight years old.  I used to nyeruput (sip) his coffee when it had been cold. As a coffee addict, my father only drinks nasgitel (hot, sweet, and strong) coffee. The blend of the coffee powder, sugar, and hot water must be precise, so to the temperature and the way of stirring. And, it was rather like a tradition than a habit in my family that it is the girls who serve the coffee for their father. You have to blend it well and precisely like your mother do. So when I entered my teenage time, I had to learn how to make it.

While my mother only uses her feeling, I started to measure the amount of coffee powder and sugar to make a perfect blend. In my first time serving it to my father, he liked it :) And he stated that I blend it well: the sweetness, the consistence, and the blend itself. Since then until the rest of my life living in my house, my mother almost always asked me to serve it.

After years, I can't figure out when was the last time I made a glass of coffee for him. When I miss him, I will make a cup of coffee blended in the way he likes, but I serve it for myself. It feels like I can find him in the fine grain of the coffee I sip. He is a person that doesn't talk much. Taciturn or uncommunicative? I don't know how I should categorize him. When I come back to my house, it is difficult for me to start or hold a conversation with him. He and I are like having a conversation in the silence we perform. I can't say he doesn't miss me or vice versa, but seeing him sitting on his chair is more than enough to relieve my longing. And sometimes I think I see that relief on him. I see it in his eyes when he looks at me every time I arrive at home.

Kopi tubruk, in sort of way, places me to a unique dimension related to my father. Since I almost never had a conversation by phone with him, a cup of coffee seems like a space, a moment, and a chance for me to talk to him. Of course, talking in a different meaning. The saddest thing: my stomach slowly become resistant to coffee as I get far from my father. Now, it needs a deep consideration for me to take a cup of black coffee because it will increase my gastric acid which is very painful for me. I start to feel I am too far away from him. When it turns to a deep feel, a feel of missing him, I don't know how to meet him out of a cup of coffee.

As I said, I love coffee, more and more if it is black and hot. I will always love it no matter how painful it is when my gastric acid increases, as I will always love my father no matter how far he and I are. Because in a long distance like now, in a cup of coffee I can find him.