Tired: Hacking hotel coffee or pod machine.

Wired: Hauling coffee equipment on your travels.

Inspired: Gifting your familyโ€”who may or may not drink coffeeโ€”with brew devices, so you donโ€™t have to pack it all.

You know youโ€™ve 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 youโ€™re 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 youโ€™re headed. With โ€œholiday stressโ€ already a common issue before COVID, itโ€™s probably not the best time to go cold turkey. So while the winter holidays continue, letโ€™s 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 didnโ€™t drink coffee, they would inevitably ask to have it every morning. And if you havenโ€™t experienced it before, hand grinding three cupsโ€™ worth of beansโ€”before even having a cup, mind youโ€”is 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. โ€œEspecially on Thanksgiving, it was important to have a good coffee after our big meal so that we didnโ€™t immediately pass out,โ€ he shares. โ€œOf 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 โ€œhot scotchlateโ€ is essentially the same but with hot chocolate mix and a shot of peaty scotch (he notes, โ€œI 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. โ€œLooking 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 yearโ€™s holiday campaign. โ€œI think thatโ€™s why they have become part of a lot of peopleโ€™s holiday traditions.โ€ Setting aside the companyโ€™s latest actions and labor issues for a moment, itโ€™s worth noting that these cups have a controversial history. Remember the minimalist, red ombre cups of 2015? Those were declared a โ€œwar on Christmas,โ€ while the 2017 designโ€™s pair of holding hands was accused of being part of the โ€œgay agenda.โ€

An outraged protestor of a cup design declined to call it a boycott. Instead, he declared it a โ€œmovement,โ€ encouraging his fellow conservative Starbucks customers to join in on โ€œOperation #TrumpCup.โ€ Miranda Popkey writes in Extra Crispy, โ€œThe 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 winterโ€”some would argue that itโ€™s spring, but those people mustโ€™ve never lived in the Midwestโ€”is 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 โ€œbegan 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, โ€œJacobs 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 โ€œsecret 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: Iโ€™m still in touch with some of the people I sent a gift box.

In Sweden, adventskaffe in December is described by Anna Brones as โ€œa little more advancedโ€ than the fika coffee break. She explains, โ€œNot only do you come together to drink coffee with family and friends, but thereโ€™s also glรถgg, Swedish mulled wine, and plenty of holiday baked goods on hand. And youโ€™ve got four Sundays to do it; you could even do one every Sunday of Advent if you so choose.โ€

Traditions donโ€™t 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. โ€œAfter everyone else has gone to sleep, I brew it to drink coffee and write by the tree,โ€ says Clark. โ€œIt’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. โ€œRituals 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 peopleโ€™s reactions to changes in rituals, they found that the more ritualistic a holiday was, the more โ€œmoral outrageโ€ it elicited when those rituals were altered. โ€œIf 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. โ€œInstead, 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 โ€œstoryโ€ 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, โ€œThe 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 youโ€™re more likely to get the ritual locked in. She says, โ€œThe 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 youโ€™re 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 donโ€™t have your own winter coffee tradition, perhaps itโ€™s 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.

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