I used to make coffee on the stove in a humble pot using instant coffee, upgrading seven years ago to a coffee machine. I pressed a few buttons and voila, a coffee to rival a barista’s! Well, not quite but I got my fix and that’s the main thing.

If I’d go over to my parents, there would just be instant coffee or those horrible sachets with too much sugar. When I went overseas, it was even worse. You’d boil water on the stove with some instant coffee and then boil some milk producing a flat coffee with no flavour. There was only one place for tourists where you’d have to wait over thirty minutes for just a sandwich and a coffee. A relative made his coffee by mixing a bit of coffee in hot water with sugar until the texture was right. The coffee tasted pleasant but it took a long time and I didn’t have the patience for that.

The next time I visited I brought my favourite brand of coffee and a French press. The coffee wasn’t as good as the machine’s but was much better than boiling it on a stove. Alas, it was made of glass and cracked in the sink.

I wasn’t going to give up on it though! I taped it but it leaked so I glued it which sounds ridiculous but hey, it’s a drug at the end of the day. I finally threw it away and got my coffee from that tourist place. If I ever open a little coffee stall there, I’d make a pretty buck and get all the villagers hooked on coffee instead of chai!

We’re so used to coffee in the west. Seeing someone walking around with a cup of coffee is so commonplace but you forget it isn’t so in other parts of the world.