Coffee, anyone?

I love a good coffee.  Who doesn't?  Truth be told, you could almost be charged with antisocial behaviour if you're not into coffee in our culture.  We may not be as eccentric as some - in Turkey, for example, it used to be legal for a woman to divorce her husband if he failed to provide her with her daily quota of coffee*.  On the other hand, in 2005 Australians spent $840 million on coffee**, so if we speak with our wallets we are definitely making loud statements about being rather fond of it. 

There is something luxurious about coffee.  It has been said that, "coffee is the common man's (sic) gold, and like gold, it brings to every person the feeling of luxury and nobility"***.  The author is mostly right.  It's just that not all common people around the globe can even afford such a luxury; it is even out of the question for most Australians who live below the poverty line.  

So here's the rub: I'm going to do without one of my coffees this week.  Instead, I"ll make a few one dollar hits to onehitwonder in the hope that by diverting a coffee's worth of dollars, someone else, somewhere else, may be able to enjoy some of the everyday luxuries that I take for granted.  Feel free to join in.  And if doing without that coffee is too personality-altering for you, make a coffee's worth of hits anyway because you just can't stand the idea that someone else, somewhere else, can't have one!

the ohw team.

*http://www.scottbroscoffee.com/culture/frameset_culture.html

**Sheik Abd-al-Kadir, "In Praise of Coffee" 1587.

***http://www.cafe2u.com.au/australia/aus-about-coffee-2022.html