Coffee and Bocaditos

One of my favorite traditions is to make french press coffee. It is less of an action and much more a ceremony. The filling of the kettle, water slowing fizzling to a boil, the sharp smell of fresh small batch coffee beans, the sound of beans cracking into a fine powder, the gurgling of the water poured into the press, patience to wait for 4 minutes before plunging, and finally the clink of an early morning cheers. The first sip is always bliss and it is at this time when my sense fully awaken.

While we decided not to take along the french press because it is glass and would be a mess if it broke in our backpack, we did decide to fold to our coffee obsession. We lugged two pounds of Rowsters coffee beans along with coffee filters and a pour over coffee maker to South America. Strange? Perhaps, but the prospect of NesCafe to start a cold winter morning did not seem romantic one bit... And, maybe it is the cold mountain water or the simple metal tea kettle, but our coffee has never tasted as good as it does on this trip.

We have been partaking in this morning ceremony with a new addition. An all natural, wheat-free, vegan bocadito from a super cute bakery we found in Bariloche, Argentina. A bocadito means snack or morsel in spanish, but these bocaditos are far from a mere morsel. The sweet, sticky, coconutty treats stick with us for hours. We even fell into the habit of having a bocadito for breakfast and another for lunch - that was all we needed to sustain us throughout the day.

Although we have since left Bariloche and our favorite little bakery filled with bocaditos behind in pursuit of fresh powder, we still hold on to our coffee ceremony. Some things transcend borders my friends - coffee tradition surely does.