Lack of foresight and traffic congestion played a trick on him. He drove at the pace of the big city: the huge number of cars, each moving at the pace of its speed; the scattering of speed bumps in the distance and unusual locations; and the haphazard operation of the traffic lights. His slow progress generated tension. Resigned, he turned on the radio, sensing that the agreed-upon time would not be honored, which is not exact. Within the framework of a certain Peruvian custom, the time is maintained, but the appearance of the interlocutor can be delayed with a certain flexibility or malleability for up to thirty minutes. Thanks to this social custom, unstated and unwritten, many personal encounters take place that would otherwise remain as good intentions.

His intuition’s premonition was accurate: he arrived after half an hour. He crossed the threshold of the agreed-upon location. From there, he scanned the landscape, noting that his interlocutor was conspicuous by his absence. He was about to retrace his steps when an intense and pleasant smell caught him. He couldn’t resist. The aroma of coffee captivated him. He sat down at a table from which he could see the arrival of new diners. He hadn’t lost hope of running into his friend! A cup of coffee was brought to him. He took a sip and, upon looking up, suddenly remembered a phrase he’d heard the protagonist of a light-hearted movie say: “Coffee brings people together.” I don’t believe it’s what it’s called ‘uniting,” but that it’s a kind of connective that facilitates conversation, he concluded. Indeed, coffee is invoked to talk about life, work-related matters, friendships, politics, more intimate matters, and even to remember those days. Coffee is also invited to keep you company while reading a book, studying, writing, reflecting, or contemplating a beautiful sunset.

Coffee flatters the sense of smell and taste, but it is at its best in those moments when a person expresses their humanity: what they think, what they feel, and what they want through words and body language that simultaneously seek to connect what is within them. The gaze, the listening, the tone of voice, accompanied by affability, respect, good humor, and attentiveness, mediated by an aromatic cup of coffee, facilitate the beginning and continuation of an intersubjective encounter. That is, people who communicate, from their uniqueness, their original ways—because they are their own—of understanding or interpreting the same reality.

Just as a diamond is polished by the action of another diamond, a person grows and is completed by the action of another person. Intersubjective communication over coffee is a poem of creativity, spontaneity, and novelty. It’s an unscored human act that has the power to confirm our humanness: humanity is touched when one is able to sit down, to listen, to “another,” which is a great way to get to know them! Now that I think about it, perhaps we should give credence to the phrase, “coffee unites the human in people.”