Morning Daydreams- Shaa’ista
In collaboration with our incredible partners at Baratza, Glitter Cat Barista presents Morning Day Dreams, a series of written and photographic work in which Glitter Cat Legends give you a glimpse into their lives and how coffee fits into them. Shaa’ista Bennaé Sabir has gifted us with photos, poetry, and a recipe in which she bares her soul and gives us hope.
For Colored Girls Raised In The South When The City Is Not Enough
I have been thinking on the ironic necessity of newness to a new notebook for some time now.
How in order to start again the previous page must be removed, torn out, discarded.
Or have never existed.
There. Brand new. Like an infant. New born. Like a babe.
But whoops! A smile. Again.
She laughs. Where did she get that laugh? Again.
And who taught her to roll her eyes?
Are you fake crying? Again?
So easily we are birthed into humanness once more.
Never fully erasing the previous pages.
And isn’t that the beauty of our human-ness, to–
Rediscover the beginning, to–
Remember what made it good, and–
Remember what made it necessary to take that long journey back around, to–
The blank page in an already started notebook, with–
Pages of varying degrees of fullness, some–
Worn and faded and loose and forgotten.
Some fresh ink that has yet to dry enough so that you won’t smudge it as you flip the page to the first blank–
In your notebook.
Lately, my waking Dreams have been colored by my Lucid ones.
There's an image, vivid and bright, of my home.
The little home that I have made for myself.
So reminiscent of the little Home Spaces I've occupied. Created.
All over the world.
Flashing pieces from each Journey.
Atlanta. Madrid. Brooklyn. Oviedo. London. Venice. Sharjah. Home.
Taking tokens and finding space to create the places of meaningful being.
They exist here as much as I've existed everywhere I've taken them.
It's a comfort really.
Knowing I can adapt and exist and permeate so many spaces.
Atlanta, my home once felt so small.
I'd been introduced to Coffee amidst a “second-wave” City by an anomaly in the community I’d always known.
One I rarely think of when I think of my coffee Journey.
To me, really, it began when I lived in New York.
Everything begins in New York.
I was turning 25 and was grasping for a year of “YES!”… and everything came to me.
Yes, new job and–
Yes, new friends and–
Yes, new beau and–
Yes to coffee.
…
And, yes, to leaving Atlanta. Brooklyn. London.
And realizing: No matter the Pond, I am always a Big, Bright, Beautiful fish.
Ironic that the less physical space I occupy the more freedom I feel to expand. To grow.
It is a strange and beautiful thing to think on all the lives I have lived.
Most notably after being told that caregiver was not my noun.
But an adjective of me.
Coffee is a new old notebook.
One that allows me to deconstruct aspects of Self and–
Community and–
Choice.
Old in its familial familiarity.
A memory of my father's chicory and decaf.
My mother prepping a pot in the Teacher's Lounge.
Both allowing me to sip from their cups.
New in its ever-growing ever-evolving nature.
In the deliberate intent of being visible and vocal within our communities.
In my creation of myself as I see me, the verb.
A living, breathing, moving voice of my own definition.
Sunshine and Peaches Sweet Tea Recipe
I am a true Georgia Peach and advocate for peach anything come summertime! Just Add Honey's Georgia Peaches is the perfect combination of dried Peach, Papaya, Apricot, and black tea with calendula and sunflower petals. The touch of Ethiopia Wate with its honeysuckle notes boosts the caffeine and rounds out the florals; while the Torani peach simple gives it just enough juicy sticky sweetness to feel like a true Georgia summer. Ashwagandha is an adaptogen that promotes cognitive clarity and acts as a natural mood enhancer, no come-down. Combining it with my coffee/tea got me through grad school (the second time), and in this drinks it balances out the spike in caffeine.
Ingredients
5 (g)rams Coffee - PERC Coffee, Ethiopia Wate
6 (g) Tea - Just Add Honey, Georgia Peaches
2 oz Simple - Torani Peach Syrup
1 Dropper Ashwagandha
Recipe - medium/fine (8-10 on the Encore) grind coffee and Steep coffee + Tea in 340 ml water for 3 minutes. Allow to cool and place in fridge to chill. Rim cup with unrefined sugar. Add ice cubes to vessel of choice and pour iced tea over. Combine peach syrup and Ashwagandha and stir until incorporated.
