Coffee's Social Role in Society

Coffee does many things for us good and bad, it keeps us caffeinated and awake, brings people together and definitely puts a damage on the credit card when you make too many trips to Starbucks.

I can blame my dad who hooked me on coffee when I was way too young. It was my Saturday treat to run downstairs in the morning and convince him to make a cup of coffee for me. A lot of cream and sugar, oh and a splash of coffee later and I was hooked. Now I’ve praised myself for making it down to only some creamer and no sugar, but sweet coffee is always the best.

Coffee not only gives us the caffeine we crave to keep us energized, but it is amazing how much coffee can bring people together. Instead of long and expensive dinners, it’s easy to text a friend you haven’t seen in a while to go catch up over a cup of coffee. I know people that don’t even like coffee, but something about going to a coffee shop is soothing and feels like a sociable place for some people.

One of my favorite things about studying abroad in Milan were the coffee shops. They were small and quaint so it was a place where you wanted to get an espresso and relax. Something I loved about the Italian culture was that you don’t typically grab a coffee and run. Instead, I would see people standing or sitting in the coffee shop enjoying their caffeinated drink before heading off to work. Some people even sat down and socialized before heading out for their day. People would give you weird looks sometimes if you got your coffee and rushed out the door. I think this is something the American culture needs to adopt, we are always “work work work” and we don’t take time to recognize what is really going on around us. So in the future, take some time to go grab a coffee and relax.