If you are on a horse, in a truck or on foot, and if you pass a ranch you had better check to see if anyone is home because they might want to have coffee with you. It means come in, sit in the shade, or stand around the open fire stove. It means dump a load of sugar in the hot cup and eat the tortillas and queso fresco hidden under a brightly embodied panuela. It means talk, chat, laugh a little and listen in the background to the radio airwaves broadcasting little bits of news across the repitadoras from one arroyo to the next. It means how are you and it can happen any time of day.
I had a hard time refusing the coffee call. Real hard to say no and not totally polite to refuse but when that coffee comes around with the New Year’s day buenulo, you’d be smart to say “gracias, si”.
The other great coffee tradition is café de chiva, or cowboy coffee. We had ours prepared on the side of cliffs or on rocky porteros by the one and only Chente, the masterful trailblazer, mulero, sportsman, singing cowboy with hands the size of a grizzly. He can bang out coffee faster than starbucks. It’s the purest, thickest mountain mud I’ve ever had. In the end you do spend time spitting out the loose grounds, but who would have guessed the seriousness fashioned to this man of the mountains when it comes to coffee time.
“Café?…Gracias, si!”
