A Cup of Coffee, Carrying Life’s Bitterness and Softness

 Coffee and tea are two flavors gifted to life by time: the moment of coffee is a passionate shift between freezing and boiling points, while the moment of tea is a gentle embrace between leaves and the years they’ve endured. Life doesn’t always need to be rushed or constrained; slowing down occasionally, stealing a half-day of peace in the aroma of coffee, is one of the rare and precious joys hidden inside an otherwise ordinary life.

For me, truly understanding life — living with calmness and intentional leisure — has always been something I longed for. Like a drifting cloud or a wild crane, free from trivialities and untouched by anxiety. And coffee, somehow, became the symbol of that longing. My affection for it has always been serious and persistent.

I still remember the first time I had coffee. I didn’t like that bitter, astringent taste at all. What drew me in was the graceful aura carried by “people who drink coffee.” As if holding a cup automatically granted a sense of ritual that stood against the mundane. That effortless calm made the younger me quietly yearn for it.

Slowly, my resistance turned into habit — and then addiction. In the roasted bitterness, there was a dreamy kind of romance. The slight bitterness on the tongue, followed by a faint returning sweetness, resembled the way we seek to live: not purely sweet, but precious precisely because the sweetness comes after the bitterness. What started as imitation eventually became a bone-deep habit, a pleasure, and a refuge — a spiritual resting place I return to every single day.

In the chilly early spring, standing by the window with a hot coffee in hand, watching willow buds sprout and light rain drift — warmth spreads from the fingers to the heart. In the quiet fall, reading an old book with the aroma of coffee beside me, the tapping of falling leaves on the window intertwines with the rising steam; solitude itself becomes gentle. In the stern winter, curled up on the sofa with a warm cup, watching snow outside — the cold seems to melt into the fragrance. Anyone addicted to coffee understands this attachment: winter without coffee simply feels incomplete.

But the charm of coffee goes far beyond the drink itself. So many writers and artists have loved it — Beethoven composed stirring symphonies amidst the scent of coffee, Picasso sketched immortal paintings in the corners of cafés, and in Haruki Murakami’s words, you can almost smell coffee’s earliest purity. Even those who don’t often drink coffee can sense, through these works, the mysterious inspiration that coffee brings.

To love coffee is to love the bitterness behind the sweetness — much like the essence of life itself. Life’s hardships and quiet endurance are like coffee’s bitterness: difficult at first taste, yet revealing depth and richness when savored slowly.

To love coffee is also to love its bold texture, subtle aroma, and the faint loneliness that belongs only to moments of solitude. In our fast-paced world, being able to sit quietly with a cup of coffee becomes a moment of dialogue with ourselves — unhurried, serene, organizing thoughts and resting emotions in the rising fragrance.

Coffee, I’ve realized, is no longer just a drink. It is an attitude toward life: leaving small pockets of space in the rush, finding sweetness after bitterness, and embracing ease within solitude. May we all find our own softness and strength within the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, and live a life where bitterness and sweetness coexist, tender and full of hope.