Whether we take it on the dock, on the beach, or on the deck, coffee at the cottage is its own special entity, entirely different from our cups of Tim’s or Starbucks on the way to work. At the cottage, coffee isn’t for shaking off the sleep; it’s a celebration of being awake to enjoy the morning.
I’ve found many family cottages have rituals around coffee. For example, by default instead of milk and sugar, we have Irish cream and coffee liquor (okay, maybe this tradition has followed us home on the occasional weekend, but we still refer to it as having “cottage” in your coffee at my house). We have an assortment of mugs that could never be used anywhere else (at mine, this includes pet supply company mugs from where my grandfather worked, mugs with random men’s names and old fashioned cars like 1957 Chevies named Bill, and a Montreal Canadiens stein that my uncle has used as long as I can remember).
We have avoided bringing coffee makers up to the cottage (even the cottages and bunkies that have power still do it the hard way). Coffee is either made on a stove-top percolator (watch out for the chewy grinds at the bottom of your cup) or made in a French press (which has a much smaller risk of a chewy bottom, but doesn’t make as many cups per pot). I’ve always felt like there’s something more organic about putting the parts together yourself rather than the automated magic of a coffee maker. It somehow seems appropriate for the cottage.
There’s something about being up early at the cottage, the aroma of fresh brewed coffee drawing people in from their various bedrooms and bunkies, not because we need to be up, but because we want to be. We get up to enjoy the peace, drink our coffee at our leisure, and be one with the morning.
