Trust is like instant coffee.

Instantly there. Sip when there is silence. Trust smells of the earth.

Trust is a special blend.

Chapter 1: Trust in Friendship

“Bro, I’m trying to get the word out. I reckon I’ve figured out the best coffee. Empirically.”

James and I were galloping down pre-Christmas Central Auckland in a manic haze talking about everything and nothing.

“There’s this coffee - instant coffee. Have you heard of Special Blend? Special Blend is the best shit out there.”

I could sense the beginning of a hilarious yarn.

“Special blend, ay! What’s so special about Special Blend? It’s all marketing, bro.”

In 2019 Metro Magazine New Zealand conducted a blind taste test of 12 instant coffees. The premise of the ‘study’ was to investigate why Kiwis flock to instant coffee.

The winner of the supposed blind taste test was a new brand of instant coffee called Coffee Supreme. The article spends a lot of time discussing Coffee Supreme’s “Next Best Thing” Instant Coffee. The perceptive reader is quick to question if the study was really just a marketing stunt.

It is almost no surprise the Coffee Supreme ranked first in the test. What is surprising, is the 2^nd place spot: Special Blend. The article describes Special Blend as:

“And it’s clearly the hero of the tasting: unassuming, not too bitter — with just a tad of that unavoidable instant sweetness — and by far the most affordable option to get some good-tasting caffeine in you.”

At an incredulous $2.49/90g, Special Blend tops the charts in perceived value. According to James, this makes Special Blend the best instant coffee. Empirically.

“Special Blend is the way to go, bro. Surely coming second means that the marketers of Coffee Supreme actually reckon Special Blend is the best. Plus, it’s a couple of bucks for a whole tin.”

Newmarket was bustling with its own special blend of people, weaving between each other. People pass like unfurled yarns, bouncing down the pavement yet to be woven into a story.

In the corner of my eye, I see an old Asian man playing a violin-looking instrument. The old man was facing the pavement with his eye’s cast down. His instrument case was open and shimmered with a few coins. The instrument looked much more ancient than a violin. It wept, streaming notes of soft tenderness spilling down memory lane.

As we rushed past the man, he suddenly felt old and wise. Like an old Zen master who has accepted the quiet grandeur of becoming the backdrop of busyness. Like a mountain overlooking a city.

I’ve walked this path many times before in different uniforms, at different times. Something felt different. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t had a full night of sleep for almost 3 days. The truth was, over the last week I hadn’t been feeling quite myself. Despite being back home to familiarity, I felt fragmented. Although I felt absorbed in presence, when I went to look for myself – old or new – I couldn’t find anything. And this left an open door to fear.

Yet I felt safe spinning ridiculous yarns with a friend. Walking and talking with James feels like a shot of instant coffee. James and I had probably walked up and down this road at different times spread thinly over the last decade. There was enough of a blend of familiarity, shared past and engagement with absurdity between us that I didn’t feel judged. I felt understood. Even respected.

Maybe I felt safe because although we talked about instant coffee, our conversation was caffeinated with trust. We talked about love, near-death experiences, times we felt betrayed, relationships, our fears. Stories about dusty teachers, lost friends, girls, plans and lack thereof.

In the presence of another, our words undress the welts that we wore on our walls and save the stories that stale our spaces.

Chapter 2: Trust in Non-Self

It’s been a couple of days since James told me about Special Blend. Our conversation has left me wondering:

What’s so special about Special Blend Instant Coffee?

The question itself.

The questions have me lying in a daze in my bedroom. The questions feel heavy like the duvet cover lacing between my legs. I look around to the writings on the walls, hoping I will find some answers.

All I see are echoes of myself.

In my childhood bedroom, the walls are welted with stories of the past. Like a map. Postcards from friends/lovers. Charcoal drawings. Written quotes from books. The walls seem like they can talk. But they don’t have the answers I’m looking for.

I walk over to my travel bag and collect a load of clothes into a bearhug. It is about time that I unpacked. I still have a couple of weeks left back home.

Before I enter the wardrobe with my clothes, I pause. I smell mothballs. Walk-in wardrobes are a cobwebs webbing time. Trophies coloured gold yet clearly plastic. All the uniforms and costumes we used to wear. Lions, stripes, colours, away team, home.

Too much. I put most of my summer clothes back into the travel bag. It’s time to escape the space of my childhood bedroom in Auckland. The noise of memories – of different ‘mes’ - in Auckland was making me feel itchy. I have a couple of weeks back home in New Zealand and in that moment, I decided to travel down to Wellington to visit James and the boys.

I stutter a few steps in front of the mirror as I grab some toiletries. What do I need to take? What can I not leave? What will change while I am gone? Do I need to take toothpaste?

--

Thankfully, it has felt freeing to be in someone else’s space.

The Khandallah flat comes alive in the morning as soon as the sun rises. After waking up and sitting for an hour, I swiftly move to the kitchen. I have familiarised myself with the coffee-corner of the kitchen. The coffee-corner and I know each other’s’ flaws. I have come to learn that only the bottom power-point at the coffee-corner works. No judgement. I open the cupboard above and reach into the assortment of different instant coffees.

“Danny, which coffee is good to use?”

The first day I arrived in Wellington, I was sure to be polite and ask which coffee was for guests.

“Special Blend, bro. It’s the best”

Danny gave me a smirk like he knew something I didn’t. As I reached for the rustic looking tin, I was surprised that this was indeed the best coffee. The Special Blend tin had fading red and dirt-brown colours that stood in stark contrast to the royal reds and golds of the other coffee tins.

By now, I had forgotten about the Special Blend yarn. Yet, the name tickled the back of my memory. I was excited to try this exotic blend.

I’ve flirted with different coffees. The milky concoctions in Milanese train stations where baristas were dressed like butlers. The misnamed cappuccinos in edgy Philadelphian cafés redeemed with a fluffy cream cheese bagel. And, of course, the caffeine-dealers in Starbucks lurking in every city corner, replete with a fix and a WiFi connection.

But there’s something special about Special Blend in a Wellington flat. A flat perched up on a hill overlooking the harbour. A home I have reacquainted with people with whom I shared the tumultuous process of ‘growing up’.

I sit and look out the window. This flat does not require any paintings on the wall. The windows are a dynamic vista adorned by the glistening blue harbour and earthy brown mountain ranges. Although I sit here alone, the space is alive with old friends that sleep, and black coffee that is awake.

The view swirls with stillness like my mug of coffee. I trust the simplicity of moments like this. Where time seems irrelevant. Moments are punctuated by sips and motion is abbreviated by observing the vastness of the ocean and the mountains. In front of me, my laptop glows. The canvas of a blank Word document reflects a candid whiteness, open with opportunities. Like the summer morning.

I trust that this is the best coffee. I lace my fingers between the mug handle and take a sip. There is a sweetness after the bitterness. My tongue curdles up, sapped dry from the roasted heat of the beans.

I trust this space because I feel sturdy like the walls. I have known the five boys that live in this flat at different times. Seeing them again I can appreciate change. I feel like the Wellington basin that looks back down at the flat. To see change, I begin to trust my own change. My own self.

“Morning, Monty!”

Monty walks into the kitchen bleary-eyed. He seems preoccupied, probably trying to figure out a jazz score in his head. I didn’t know Monty well in high school. Last night we played around with his setup where he jiggered up an impromptu beat over which I freestyled.

Hot water. A little bitter. That’s the Special Blend. There’s nothing too special about Special Blend. I begin to trust the swirling granules that float, dissolve, and change.

Chapter 3: Trust in Change

“The most important thing about good coffee is that you like it."

These are the words of David Strang, a Kiwi from Invercargill, who invented instant coffee in 1889.

I was surprised to find that New Zealand was the birthplace of instant coffee. I came upon Mr. Strang and his patented ‘Dry Hot-Air’ process of producing instant coffee because I became obsessed. I was curious as to how on earth one could manipulate coffee so that it could instantly dissolve into hot water and become a seamless blend.

I learned that the production of instant coffee is like forging synthetic diamonds:

How to Produce Instant Coffee (aka ‘forging synthetic diamonds’)

1. First, coffee is brewed and frozen into a veil of black ice.

2. Then, the ice is slowly ground down into a fine crystal that shimmers like powdered pearls.

3. The coffee essence must be carefully preserved while the water is sublimated leaving a fine dust.

A truly special blend of human ingenuity,

Caffeine.

And lust.

“The most important thing about good coffee is that you like it.”

Trust the blend. A patient process. That’s the most important thing.

--

When I returned to Auckland, I marched straight to my room.

‘Letting go’ is never really letting go once.

I threw my travel bag back in front of the wardrobe and took a deep breath. Released a strong woosh through my teeth like an ocean breeze.

It is breathing in. And then out. Rinse and repeat.

I started to feel angry at the whole quest and question of Special Blend. Back in my own bedroom, I began to lose faith that everything was okay. The future was full of potholes, a minefield of perceived limitations. The past was a bleak hallway adorned with memories, a photo-reel of things I had lost and what I thought was love, grow more distant.

I decided to move with the anger and started tearing things off the wall.

In moments you will find them. Moments that fall like snowflakes from the icy maroons of what could have been, what was. Chances you mistook for promises.

I start cleaning the room methodically. Throwing away half the things. Filing away the other half. I begin to see the stories behind the books on my shelves. On the top shelf solely stands a small bronze statue of the god Hanuman, a gift of watchful protection from my mother. The second shelf has a neat corner for my dead Grandad’s journals, containing the last scribbles of his wisdom. The little altar at my desktop is adorned with a fat buddha and Wonder Woman. Two small figurine gifts from friends/lovers.

In these private moments breathe and look around you. See the souls that lurk lost in the privacy of their own selves. Other humans hung between their private loves and losses. Loves and losses that you may not notice; yet are found in their wayward smiles. In their sniggers or laughs. Their odd jokes.

The problem with Special Blend is that if you ever decide to move on, it will slowly coax you back. I remember how I was lured by the coffee into a drug-trance; warm, hot, seductive. I remember how the rest of the day seared in a storm-cloud of headaches.

I look at the walls and see a lyric by Earl Sweatshirt written on a small chit: “Peace to every crease on your brain.” It is clear that these walls can talk, and they seem to echo my words. As walls should. I decide to straighten up this wall.

As you knock on the door of the private moments of others, protected by the bulwarks of grief, pain and awkwardness, you will find yourself down another path.

Enough for now. I walk out of my room and look back. It’s slowly coming together. The taste of special blend stales the back of my throat. It’s probably stopping the tears. Special blend of what? Of memories, of friendship, of touch and taste and love. A special blend of stories and spaces. A special blend that flavours change with hints of trust.

As you open another’s world, trust each step. Each leap. As a chance not as a promise. Walk delicately amongst the growing flowers festooning in the festering weeds.