My Coffee Mug From Hakone

I was picked up today again, carefully plucked from my slumber. Where I sleep, I am surrounded by my new family members of all shapes and sizes. My body is carefully levitated through the air to avoid clinking into anybody else. As I’m being carried, I catch sight of the wide room and the windows of the lounge room with toys scattered all over the floor. Based on the hue and angle of the sun and the silence of nobody else around, I could tell it was the start of the day. It was time for the morning ritual.

I am gently placed on a wooden board that I’ve now grown familiar with. The board is large and wide enough to host many things. I survey the space, I notice so many others around me. Some are covered with old milk, some with dried-up red wine, some sit below in the sink soaking in water and some sit stacked atop one another. There were new faces I had not met and I was keen to introduce myself. However, it was an unspoken rule that when humans are around, conversing was forbidden. As a newcomer, I wondered deeply where these rules originated from. Who set this rule? What would happen if we broke it? And most curiously, why am I so far away from my home town of Hakone?

I was snapped out of my daydream of questions with movement in my periphery. Everybody that once sat around me suddenly began to be shifted and lifted away from the board. The human placed them all into the dark box that had a large metal door that swung downwards. In that murky place, we are all made to lay upside down and sometimes made to stay in there for days on end. I was only placed in there once but the experience remains burned into my mind. I recall the horrid memories of that place, it stank of every old food and liquid you could imagine.

Last week, a guy I met by the name of Gerald. He finally cracked after being subjected to that torture multiple times a week. He was a double-walled glass mug, and it appeared that the extreme temperatures caused his face to crack. He was immediately disposed of. This signalled others to stand firm and not crack under pressure.

Now, within the continued silence of the room, I sit alone on this vast expanse of this wooden platform. Click. In the distance, the sounds of water begin the boil. The ritual commences. Just like clockwork, I knew what was coming up next and who was soon to arrive. First came Acaia, he's a physics whiz that beeps to communicate measures of weight and is carefully placed beneath me. Then along comes Hario, who's elegant and light, and is perched carefully on my shoulders ever so carefully. This is an acrobatic balancing act we've now are accustomed to.

Even though we've all met a few times, I've never had the fortune to get to know them. I continue to have so many questions running through my mind and yet we couldn’t say a word. All we had was the opportunity to be there with one another, to be part of this ritual that appeared to be essential for the morning.

Hario took centre stage up top and it must have had something to do with her intricate features. I had noticed her sides weren't simple but instead held a beautifully even curved system of intricate grooves and lines wrapping her entire circumference. And I suppose to protect her smooth glass, she dons a new white paper dress each time. Once dressed, the human ever so carefully tipped in an earthy roasted ground powder. It must have been as precious as gold, as every fine bit was precisely put in and distributed.

Goosey the kettle began whistling steam and he was carried on over and started trickling hot water right over Hario. Being here for about the dozenth time, I took a deep breath, close my eyes and waited to catch the first few drops of the hot black liquid. The temperature no longer really affects me and if anything I welcome it to warm myself up during the mornings. The few drips, turn into a rapid-fire of drops to what now is a steady but small stream of a dark, aromatic and caramel-like liquid. The ritual gives what you put in.

My vessel now approaches being fully enveloped with the dark hot liquid and what was once a stream is now back to a fading series of drips. The last drop drips. Drip. I can feel Hario being raised from my shoulders and placed beside me. I am then held with two warm hands. Gently, I am held up, carefully inspected, smelt and clasped. It marks the time for me to serve up this precious liquid.  The morning can now begin. The ritual is complete.

Thank you for reading!

Here are some photos and a breakdown of the gear I use for my morning coffee ritual.

• Coffee mug from The Hakone Open-Air Museum
• Scale is an Acaia Lunar
• Pourover is a Hario Switch
• Kettle is a Stagg EKG