Ethiopia Sidamo, by Starbucks

I decided to do a little reading today. I had time to read the back of my pound of coffee. Fortunately, there was something interesting:

"There isn't a culture on earth that appreciates the coffee it grows more than the people of Ethiopia. Making coffee is a spiritual experience that begins with roasting beans over an open flame, grinding with mortar and pestle, brewing in a long-necked pot and then pouring the aromatic brew for all gathered. It's a ceremony that recalls the splendor of a regal people..."

A couple observations:

I've had the "spiritual experience" of having beans roasted over an open...burner. The spiritual part of it happened for me as the house filled with smoke and I prayed it wouldn't burn to the ground.

The Starbucks people astutely left out two other components that take some getting used to: popcorn, served with the coffee and incense that is burned along with the coffee. The back of my pound of coffee recommends instead "lemon bars and a seat drenched in sunlight."

So soon I go to "regal people" with "reverence for the bean." I would absolutely love to meet a Starbucks marketing person there. I might ask them, through the haze of incense and coffee bean smoke, if they happened to bring lemon bars.