A Spanish friend always misquotes the expression, “My cup of tea” but as this story is all about coffee and individualism (to an extent anyway) I will call it, My Cup of Coffee.
Back in 2003 as I was finishing my degree in AIT, the canteen started using more and more polyester and styrofoam cups instead of the brown Duralex glass cups they had traditionally used.
The racks of cups kept being reduced as the glass cups broke and were easily replaced with boxes of styrofoam cups with most people doubling up so that the tea or coffee didn't burn their hands.
I refused the styrofoam rubbish on offer and insisted on glass cups even when there were none available and asked several times why they kept opting for the disposable cups over washable cups.
This was a place that had dishwashers even if no one wants the extra work in cleaning things.
By the end of the year, some friends bought me my own personalised mug which I kept in my locker and rinsed with boiling water after drinking coffee. I was the only one doing it at the time and I clearly wasn’t an influencer as no one seemed to follow my annoying example.
A little girl in Sweden was born that same year who has suspended her studies to focus on the Climate Crisis whereas I was elected to the Student Union in my college that year and never once mentioned the environmental impact of using so much waste when a clear (yet slightly brownish Duralex) alternative existed and was literally within our reach.
As a student representative, I actually had a voice on the catering committee within the college but I didn’t discover that until half-way through the year.
You can wait for elected representatives to wake up and smell the coffee and figure out their jobs or wait for students to say "Enough" and demand change but we do have a choice.
Pick a coffee or tea, opt for fair-trade by all means, when picking your beans but if you can reach for an environmentally friendly option, do ask yourself, is this my cup of tea? Is this for me?
Recently, a company where I give classes has started offering reusable cups made of a light-weight bamboo material to their employees. Paper cups are stacked high on the coffee machine as many people are opting to carry their own cup and I find myself passing a Sharpie pen down the queue so other people know whose cup is whose.
I’m an individual, just like everyone else and governments and companies will have to give people choices they can easily get behind and support and my coffee is now 10 cents cheaper which makes a difference when you drink as much coffee as me.
Back to the future, I find myself carrying my own mug again, just like I used to do in college but this time as I look around, the styrofoam cups are all gone and I can say,
"This is my cup of coffee,"
as I reach for the bamboo fibre cup, with my name on it.
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