Tired: Hacking hotel coffee or pod machine.
Wired: Hauling coffee equipment on your travels.
Inspired: Gifting your familyโwho may or may not drink coffeeโwith brew devices, so you donโt have to pack it all.
You know youโve hit a turning point in your coffee hobby or profession when you find yourself prioritizing coffee plans before you travel. Do you pack a set of brew equipment? Rely on a handful of instant coffee packets? Or identify the specialty roasters near where youโre staying?
As the drink of choice for two in three Americans, coffee is a necessary part of the day, no matter where you are or where youโre headed. With โholiday stressโ already a common issue before COVID, itโs probably not the best time to go cold turkey. So while the winter holidays continue, letโs look at how coffee plays an important role.
I remember one winter, for a three-week stay with my family, I carefully packed a Baratza Virtuoso, Acaia scale, Chemex, and filters into my carry-on. From previous visits, I had learned that despite my parents insisting that they didnโt drink coffee, they would inevitably ask to have it every morning. And if you havenโt experienced it before, hand grinding three cupsโ worth of beansโbefore even having a cup, mind youโis not my idea of fun. Since then, their brew equipment has been upgraded from a Clever to a Chemex because I got tired of making so many single cups.
The subscription service Beanbox ran a consumer survey back in 2019 and found that 25% of respondents will bring their preferred coffee home for the holidays. And possibly due to elevated stress levels, 39% of those surveyed confessed to increasing their coffee intake during the holidays. Roasters and retailers capitalize on this with a slew of fun coffee advent calendars, themed signature drinks, and tasty holiday blends.
Coffee professional Evan Gilman took it a step further by concocting his own coffee mixes for gatherings. โEspecially on Thanksgiving, it was important to have a good coffee after our big meal so that we didnโt immediately pass out,โ he shares. โOf course, this had the deleterious effect of working against the caffeine and pretty much putting me straight to sleep. But what a digestif!โ He prepped large batches of coffee for two different drinks. For the hot buttered coffee: take a mug and fill it three-quarters with coffee, add a heaping tablespoon or two of hot buttered rum mix, then a shot of rum, and froth and mix well. The โhot scotchlateโ is essentially the same but with hot chocolate mix and a shot of peaty scotch (he notes, โI used Laphroaig 8 year for the original version.โ).
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For 25 years, the appearance of Starbucksโ holiday cups and drinks has signaled the arrival of winter. โLooking back at all the years of holiday cups, you can see the commitment to design and artistry and all things handcrafted,โ said Gary Jacobson, Starbucks creative director for this yearโs holiday campaign. โI think thatโs why they have become part of a lot of peopleโs holiday traditions.โ Setting aside the companyโs latest actions and labor issues for a moment, itโs worth noting that these cups have a controversial history. Remember the minimalist, red ombre cups of 2015? Those were declared a โwar on Christmas,โ while the 2017 designโs pair of holding hands was accused of being part of the โgay agenda.โ
An outraged protestor of a cup design declined to call it a boycott. Instead, he declared it a โmovement,โ encouraging his fellow conservative Starbucks customers to join in on โOperation #TrumpCup.โ Miranda Popkey writes in Extra Crispy, โThe tactic is a revealing one: these protests treat the coffee chain as neither a product nor a company, but as a kind of public forum.โ For a while, Starbucks enjoyed a brand reputation of being liberal, but its recent anti-unionizing efforts have marred this perception for many.
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Rounding out the winterโsome would argue that itโs spring, but those people mustโve never lived in the Midwestโis Passover. In a fascinating documentation of how Maxwell House became synonymous with the holiday for over nine decades, Rebecca Firkser writes that advertising agency Joseph Jacobs Advertising โbegan working with Maxwell House in 1923 to run a campaign informing the Jewish public that coffee was kosher for Passover.โ
In the beginning, a branded Haggadah came free with every Maxwell House coffee can purchased in the grocery store and detailed the rituals for a Passover seder. Aimee Levitt in The Takeout writes, โJacobs was resourceful: he found a respected rabbi from the Lower East Side to proclaim that coffee beans were actually berries, and therefore kosher for Passover.โ The still-free booklet has been printed 60 million times around the world and is arguably one of the most effective and long-running campaigns in consumer marketing history.
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The pandemic has wreaked havoc on previously entrenched traditions. Some are on pause indefinitely while new ones have been created.
For a few years, Third Wave Wichteln (currently paused) ran the largest international specialty coffee โsecret Santaโ type of event. Enthusiasts and professionals alike would box up at least one bag of coffee and extra goodies, especially if being shipped overseas. The sense of community was real: Iโm still in touch with some of the people I sent a gift box.
In Sweden, adventskaffe in December is described by Anna Brones as โa little more advancedโ than the fika coffee break. She explains, โNot only do you come together to drink coffee with family and friends, but thereโs also glรถgg, Swedish mulled wine, and plenty of holiday baked goods on hand. And youโve got four Sundays to do it; you could even do one every Sunday of Advent if you so choose.โ
Traditions donโt have to involve Christmas morning coffee or red cups of peppermint mocha. A solo practice like the one that coffee professional, writer, and historian Valorie Clark enjoys can be just as enriching. As a way to keep up with her daily writing habit and to take a break from socializing, she packs a bag of decaf coffee. โAfter everyone else has gone to sleep, I brew it to drink coffee and write by the tree,โ says Clark. โIt’s a nice moment to center myself and keep up with habits that are easy to drop during the holidays.โ
But perhaps your traditions need a refresh, or you want to create memorable ones of your own. โRituals are characterized by formality, repetition, sequence, and meaningfulness,โ explains Juliana Schroeder, an Associate Professor and Harold Furst Chair in Management Philosophy and Values at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. In a recently published paper, co-authored with Daniel H. Stein, on peopleโs reactions to changes in rituals, they found that the more ritualistic a holiday was, the more โmoral outrageโ it elicited when those rituals were altered. โIf you have to alter a tradition, don’t try to use some sort of instrumental reason,โ says Schroeder. Small changes can elicit a large outrage, even if presented with a reasonable explanation. โInstead, try to tie the alteration to the meaning of the ritual so that you don’t violate its meaningfulness. For example, if you have to move a holiday celebration, you could move it to another date that you think could also have similar meaningfulness.โ
To create your tradition, you need to consider the aforementioned components of a ritual. Specificity is important, as well as the symbolic value or โstoryโ that goes with the specific detail, says Schroeder. For example, if you want to drink a cup of coffee out of a certain mug, you need to define why that mug is important to you (she gives as an example, โThe reason why you use this cup is because your grandmother used the same cup in the early 1900sโ). Add more details with stories like when you drink it, where, with whom, and youโre more likely to get the ritual locked in. She says, โThe more you can link the details up with particular stories, the more you’ll be reminded of the meaning with every action you do.โ
Whether youโre catching up with friends over a cup of coffee or serving a mixed drink at the end of a holiday meal, coffee is the throughline that supports many a winter holiday tradition. If you donโt have your own winter coffee tradition, perhaps itโs time to consider establishing one. There’s no time like the present.
Jenn Chen (@thejennchen) is an Editor At Large at Sprudge Media Network. Read moreย Jenn Chen on Sprudge.