The long cold months of winter in Canada can be difficult for many people. Seasonal affective disorder, mobility issues over icy or snowy terrain or just plain aversion to the wind chill can bring people down. One of the most beloved features of late fall and winter is a hot beverage. Whether you are partial to hot chocolate, chai tea or good old cup of joe, hot beverages warm both our insides and lift our spirits.
Canadians drink a lot of hot beverages. We drink 2.7 cups of coffee, alone, a day. Many of us take a ritualistic approach to our tea or coffee, probably without even thinking about it. Watching the coffee brew, the order in which we add sugar or milk, the mugs we use, are often repeated with precision-like predictability. These rituals reduce our anxieties in our day, days that may be uncertain or particularly stressful. They slow us down somewhat, when we are scrambling in our busy lives to get one more thing accomplished. Inherently, we must wait until our hot coffee or tea is ready for us. Rush this process and you risk burning your mouth.
While the heat of the beverage warms our hands, evidence suggests that emotional warmth stems from hot drinks as well. Evidence suggests that drink temperature can influence your levels of trust toward the people around you.
The covid 19 pandemic and it’s forced isolation created a widespread loneliness and distrust of other people that was unprecedented. Job loss and work-from-home to the closing of many independent coffee shops and restaurants have reduced the number of people we come into contact with without a screen as an intermediatory.
The pre-pandemic connection to the local coffee shop barista could potentially lighten your mood for the morning and combat some of the loneliness we feel. Loneliness and isolation have been linked to cognitive decline, so that chit-chat with our favorite barista is beneficial for our overall mental health.
Rituals around coffee, tea or cocoa need not be practiced solo. Collective rituals can improve social cohesion. This has been linked to overall wellbeing and satisfaction among group members. Strategically placed hot beverages in the workplace can facilitate social bonds among co-workers leading to better collaboration.
Perhaps the key point from this is that coffee rituals are less about making coffee than they are about forging meaningful connections with others that enhance our lives and make them happier. So, as we enter the dark season in Canada, let’s stock up on our favorite hot beverages and re-establish or re-enforce those social bonds we may have lost over the pandemic years.
