Coffee, and how NOT to buy an olive tree

I failed miserably at doing something that I prided myself in, and that is applying my cultural diplomacy skills to negotiating the price of an olive tree. After all, I have been professionally involved in this field for decades, so what could possibly go wrong in buying a tree? And in any case, what does this have to do with coffee you ask?

Well, several months ago I drove up north to the Arab-Israeli city of Um El Faham, to make a dream come true and buy an olive tree for the new house that we had just finished building in the Lower Galilee. I love olive trees, there ancient and stubborn presence, their bitter fruit, their tenacity as they outlive us generation after generation, their convoluted appearance as the branches and trunk develop into a convoluted mess of bark and wood. The olive tree, more than anything else, symbolizes cultural and symbolic ownership of the land on which they grow.

After I had parked my car at the orchard, I walked in the direction of the small tent that stood at the furthest edge of the olive grove, where two men sat in the shade, on the edge of their wooden stools, crouched over the finjan (coffee pot) in fierce concentration.

As I arrived at the tent, one of the men got up, greeted me and handed me a small ceramic cup, half full of the steaming black liquid. I accepted it, and started to ask him questions about a tree that caught my attention. The man looked at me awkwardly and motioned me to sit on a stool he pulled out from under the drapes of the tent. I chose to stand, I was on a mission after all, and was pressed for time. When we finally started to talk about the tree the man seemed impatient, and not very helpful. And, he was not at all interested in lowering the price of the tree. What crap service I thought to myself.

It was only later, during the drive home, that I understood how culturally insensitive I had been. My diplomacy was goal oriented, not relationship oriented. Had I been slower in my approach, more patient in my communication, I may well have created a more trustful and inclusive form of communication. I was not accustomed to this pace of life, having lived in the cosmopolitan metropolis of Tel Aviv, were slow is considered a cardinal sin.

This encounter has taught me a lesson. I now have a beautiful olive tree in the entrance to my driveway; gnarled, old, tough and ever so slow at growing. Mahmoud even included the shipping of the tree into the price. And the coffee was really great too.

If you have any coffee related tidbits, please bring them on…