October 13, 2000

October 13, 2000

What’s my favorite part of Bulgaria? Thanks for asking and read on! Read this article I found in the Sofia Echo, the mostly grammatically correct English newspaper here in Bulgaria. (Hopefully the copyright police won’t catch me. I’m not making any money off this, am I?) Anyway, this is from the Sept. 22-28, 2000, pg. 18, by Petya Rousseva the “Humour Columnist.” The column is entitled, “Bulgarian way of drinking coffee.” -Josh

I’m having my morning cup of coffee and the telephone rings. “Hi, Petya, let’s have a cup of coffee at …” Immediately I’m pouring my coffee in the sink and I’m off.

At work I run into a colleague of mine, steaming mug of coffee in hand, just like me. “Hi are you done for today? Let’s have a cup of coffee at . . .” Immediately we pour the contents of our mugs down the sink (our cleaning lady is a treasure) and off we go.

I’m finishing my coffee and I’m about to leave the café. Somebody is calling my name: “Hi, let’s have a cup of coffee!” And in seconds we are off to decide on another café.

Does this happen to you:

A) Almost everyday? You’re Bulgarian.

B) Now and again? Nice try; you might be Bulgarian but you need to improve to be true to the Bulgarian Way of Drinking Coffee.

C) Almost never? You badly need some guidance to get you into this unique Bulgarian tradition.

Tradition? OK, I know the Bulgarian Way of Drinking Coffee is younger than the much-loved dance, the

horo. It’s even younger than my grandfather. On the other hand, you don’t need to have read The Invention of Tradition (Hossbaum and Range, Cambridge University Press; don’t know the price but you can borrow it for nothing from the British Council Library) to grasp the at many well-known traditions are much younger than we think and that the more we support them the more chanced they have at survival. Well, we do support them. Sometimes I do nothing for days except fight for this cause (I mean sit and drink coffee endlessly in different cafes).

What makes the Bulgarian Way of Drinking Coffee so special and why and I exerting myself so to preserve it?

A person’s coffee-drinking style can tell you a lot about them. My particular style (black coffee and don’t insult me with that decaffeinated nonsense) predisposes people to see me as a choleric hard-liner (and it’s a sheer pleasure to live up to expectations). My friend Lora always drinks her coffee with half a spoonful of sugar – even if you give her a soup spoon. Isn’t it more than obvious what her stance would be in the trite dispute whether size matters?

Still, the Bulgarian Way of Drinking Coffee represents the best version of you. You can’t get drunk. You can’t eat too much. Since the conversation pace is very slow, you can hardly say too much, either.

All this makes the Bulgarian Way of Drinking Coffee an ideal script for a first date. Oh, and the price of coffee, too. How many dinners in good restaurants do you think a man on an average Bulgarian could buy you per month? (one to three).

We don’t enjoy coffee by itself. Let’s face it, here they don’t serve Jamaican Blue Mountain. We savour the conversation, not the liquid. The Bulgarian Way of Drinking Coffee may not even include coffee. Coffee may not even include coffee. My previous boyfriend always used smelled strangely of beer after his meeting for a ‘cup of coffee with the buddies.’

The talk that goes with this cup of coffee rarely solves problems, brings about bright ideas or leads to something practical. One of my coffee-partners and I haven’t said anything new since we met 11 years ago. We repeat the same dialogue, polishing it to perfection. I love it – what a source of stability in this changing world.

Wait! I almost forgot: we don’t drink coffee. We driiiiink coffee. See the difference?! Thanks to some neighbors of ours we really know how important it is to take our time in an Oriental type of way. If you don’t have at least 40 minutes for your coffee, don’t even start. I do understand the raison d’etre for vodka-shots and tequila-shots but why be so goal-oriented about coffee?

The Bulgarian way of drinking coffee has a profoundly relaxing effect. Everywhere else coffee is supposed to provide you with a boost of energy this beautiful slang for “hyper”. The Bulgarian Way of Drinking Coffee makes you sink into your chair comfortably, listen to your companions and say to yourself: ‘Hey, life is really not that bad, it is even better than this cup of coffee.’