Albanians had many symbols in the coffee-drinking ritual. These conveyed positive and negative messages when friends had relationships, meetings, or various situations. But what were these messages expressed by the coffee-serving ritual?
For example, if a highlander went dressed in the guest’s customary attire to the house of another fellow villager—whether a relative or simply an acquaintance—to continue a conversation started earlier (such as in an informal tobacco-sharing session concerning an engagement, the easing or resolution of a conflict through blood reconciliation, or other important matters), the host would not ask the guest how he wanted his coffee.
Through the degree of sweetness or bitterness of the coffee, the guest symbolically received the appropriate message about the progress of the matter that was the background of such a visit.
– If very sweet coffee was served, the guest received the message that the issue had been resolved or was on a good path with no turning back.
To reinforce this positive message, the guest would usually highlight the excessive sweetness in another way, using typical expressions such as: “You’ve mixed the coffee with honey,” “You’ve added honey to the coffee, not sugar,” “You’ve poured a whole jar of honey into the coffee,” etc.
The host would generally approve these statements (nodding his head up and down or smiling). After such approval, the guest would speak with an optimistic and more relaxed spirit about resolving the matter at hand.
– If medium-sweet coffee was served, it signaled that the issue of interest remained pending and its outcome could not be predicted. To confirm the “frozen” status implied by medium coffee, the guest would diplomatically say things like: “I don’t know if there was sugar in your parts or not,” “The snow has blocked the roads and no sugar has come from the city since time immemorial,” etc. In such situations, the men of the hosting side would remain silent.
The guest with a mission in the conversation would understand that he needed to be very careful in his reasoning and wisely use all his arguments to move the issue toward the best solution.
– If unsweetened (bitter) coffee was served, the guest could react in two ways. Less often, he would reinforce the fact with somewhat diplomatic expressions such as: “The weather has been bad and goods haven’t arrived from the city,” “The world has taken sugar’s place,” etc.
As a rule, the hosts remained silent. In most cases, the bitterness of the coffee needed no confirmation. The guest would respond to the hosts’ silence with silence, which meant that the negative answer to the matter was indisputable.
In such circumstances, the message carried by the bitterness of the coffee appeared more clearly as a kind of royal decree or firman. Therefore, the guest would not open the conversation at all, in which he was in the role of the “subordinate” guest.
Generally, the guest would maintain spiritual calm (or at least appear to) and start conversations about other topics, such as the influence of the weather on seasonal agricultural work, livestock breeding, or even problems of the Russo-Japanese War, etc. In most cases, the guest would carefully and cleverly steer such conversations away from the issue he was directly interested in.
It is worth noting that the use of coffee bitterness and other symbolic means to convey negative responses—especially for vital issues concerning the fates of individuals, families, or members of larger communities—had special importance in many segments of traditional Albanian society. A direct negative word carried very heavy weight, up to the level of disregard or insult toward the other party, not only for the family and individual directly affected by the bad word, but also for his entire clan/tribe.
Additionally, the degree of sweetness or bitterness of the coffee served in funeral ceremonies in many regions of Albania symbolically expressed the degree of grief for the deceased, the age of the deceased, and the intensity of family, clan, or broader concerns caused by his departure from this life.
– If the deceased was elderly with grown, married children and a stabilized economic situation → sweet coffee was served.
– If the deceased was middle-aged with some children married and some unmarried → medium coffee was served.
– If the deceased was young, with small children or unmarried → very bitter coffee, without sugar was served.
According to widespread superstitions in pre-modern Albanian society, the coffee cup also reflected many elements of the personality, lifestyle, and spiritual state of the people drinking the coffee.
For example, if a man drank his coffee hot, it was thought (according to superstitions) that he was so cowardly that he was even afraid of his wife. Also, according to superstitions, if a person drank sweet coffee, he had a bitter life—and vice versa: if he drank bitter coffee, he had a happy life.
As a rule, serving coffee symbolically marked the near-conclusion of almost every type of joyful ceremony and radiated complex and highly nuanced symbolic messages in funeral ceremonies.
Besides such settings and in bars/cafes and restaurants, coffee was perhaps the only drink that, in a considerable part of Albanian territories, was also served in cemeteries.
But what message did the coffee served in the cemetery, right after the burial of the deceased, convey?
Such coffee, especially in the northern regions of Albania, symbolically testified that the deceased had performed important social functions for the members of the clan, the villagers, the brotherhood, etc.—in other words, he was a distinguished man.
Serving coffee with the left hand—and especially under the knee—was considered a very grave insult, especially toward men who had delayed taking blood revenge in the name of a killed family member or relative.
Taken from “Lenses of Symbolic Interaction” / Zyhdi Dervish)
Source
Trungu.com
