The Playwright, Thornton Wilder  once said, "We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." 

Welcome to the Soul Podcast. I’m Stacey Wheeler.

When we think of treasures, we might have a picture that comes to mind. But when gratitude is part of our practice, we start to notice treasures hiding in plain sight. 

Let me tell you a story. Something you might not know about me. 

There are people who pick coffee beans for me. Well, technically they are coffee berries. The bean is the seed in the middle. But they are beans when they’re done. The team lives in another country and I’ve never met them in person but, each day they pick these fresh coffee berries from the bushes which, they’ve carefully cultivated over many years. 

There’s a certain skill to knowing exactly when to pick these beans. And it’s almost always picked by hand. The beans ripen at different rates, so picking them by hand assures that only the ripe ones are harvested. That helps assure quality. So. each day they visit the same bush and pick the best beans. 

This knowledge has been passed down through generations to the people who do this work for me.  

They pick the beans carefully, getting ones that are just the right quality. After the beans are gathered, they put them through a washing process to remove the berry skin from the bean. There are several stages to the process of washing. The final one involves soaking them. You see, when a seed is bad, it floats to the top and it’s removed from the others. It takes knowledge and patience to assure only the good beans are left.  

After removing them from the water, my team lays the beans out on a large drying deck with direct exposure to the sun. They use special rakes to move the coffee beans around, so they dry evenly. This process can take up to four weeks. 

But this traditional process ensures that the drying isn’t rushed. And I think they taste better when it’s not rushed. 

When the coffee beans are ready, the team puts them in special sacks that allow the beans to breathe.  Then the beans are shipped to another person who works for me. And this person is thousands of miles from where they were grown. 

There’s another guy who picks them up for me and delivers them to an expert who works for me. 

This person has had years of experience in coffee roasting. A real expert! The perfect amount of beans are pulled from the sacks and they are puts in a coffee roaster, when the temperature is just right. The beans are roasted exactly the way I like them. Not too dark not too light, exactly as I like them. Perfect!

When the beans are ready There’s another staff member who grinds them. I like them a little coarse not to fine like espresso. So that’s the way they’re prepared. Then they take those beans and coffee is made from them exactly the way I like it.

Every detail is catered to - to ensure I get exactly the cup that I like.

It has been cultivated, picked, dried, bagged, shipped, roasted and prepared. 

When the coffee is ready, this person who works for me places the cup in front of me and offers me cream. 

It’s wonderful.

For this service I pay about three dollars a cup.

Today, try and be conscious of the treasures.