My Buna Time in 2022

I don’t think I consumed a healthy level of caffeine the last two days.

I was at the Chicago Coffee Fest the last two days for one of my jobs, and I couldn’t help but think about how little brain focus I had from being around coffee for seven hours straight with nearly no food in me, two days in a row. It was precisely what you would think of a coffee convention for industry professionals. There were random espresso experiments, drinks I didn’t know existed, the weirdest collection of people in a room that look so different, and yet all definitely work in coffee. The challenge of testing my caffeine tolerance to the max while trying to come up with some plans or strategies for my job this year was fun to say the least.

It’s been about five years since I started drinking coffee regularly. In that time, I’ve gone from trying to structure my drinking habits and hobby interests for coffee in every possible direction. Up until drinking it regularly, coffee was an essential part of growing up in my house. My parents would get family to fly back with pounds of beans back home, brewed espresso at home, and my aunt (basically my grandma in the states) would do coffee ceremonies regularly at every family gathering. It was only when I became a coffee drinker, developing my own rituals for buna (coffee in Amharic) at home, and working in a shop that I got really what I love about this bev so…