Return to Café Culture

Daily rituals are important to us. One of our rituals is sitting down at a local café and enjoying a flat white after exercise.  

Then COVID19 came along. So, over the last couple months in Perth, we were restricted to takeaway coffee only. Today, our Monday Motivation gets a caffeine boost. Subject to COVID boundaries, limited sit down coffee is back on the tables.

The absence of this discretionary spending option got me thinking about why so many of us hold café culture in such high esteem?

For us, it’s not completely about having a good coffee, although it’s a pretty big one. To us, other factors come into play.

Pre COVID, when we were housesitting all over the place, we were always finding new cafés in the local area. It fuelled our zest for creativity, exploring and discovering places new to us, even in our own city.

Atmospheric cafes provided great places for us to brainstorm ideas. Over a coffee, seeds were planted that sprouted into what became our online course concepts. Changing location is a well known tip for increasing creativity.

With our mobile lifestyle, we use suitable cafés for business meetings. Zoom calls aren’t quite the same as face to face, but it certainly fills a gap while COVID hangs around.

We found, especially in el fresco settings, sipping a really good coffee awakens our senses. It’s a bit like wine tasting with colour, smell and taste. With coffee the visual is latte art, the aroma and taste. We see enjoying a coffee as process to linger over, saviour and be in the moment with. We have created a whole sensory experience course using café coffee as an example.

I will have to say, the biggest attraction cafes can offer is socialising and connecting with people. I’m talking about meeting friends for a catch up and meeting new ones.

Today, we break out of the COVID grip and back into a bit of café culture. J’Co Café in Claremont is open and we will be there while obeying social distancing rules. And we won’t be limiting ourselves to the usual two flat whites either. Our favourite cafés need our support so a smashed avocado might be heading our way.