Affogato is one of the coffee variants I just tasted, and it’s my first time having it in a café in East Java. I’m not a big fan of coffee, but when I look up the menu, I’m a little bit curious about the affogato that is listed in the coffee section, so I order it.
When the waiters deliver my order to my table. The first thing that I look up is the coffee — affogato itself. The initial thought that comes to my mind is…
“Oh, it’s not really like kopi gula aren I usually order, actually it’s not like coffee that can be drunk as usual but a kind of dessert consisting of two things, such as vanilla ice cream with caramel topping and black coffee knowns as espresso”.
This café served affogato in a brandy glass. When I touch the glass, the espresso is still hot, but the ice cream is cold. I can see the ice cream slowly melting in hot espresso that seeps into the ice cream, creating a black coffee that seems to drown the cold ice cream. The white color of vanilla ice cream that melts seems to create color gradations on the deep black color of the espresso. The color gradient that is formed is very artistic and a beautiful sight to behold. Later, I learned that affogato was originally invented in Italy and has the meaning “drowned” in Italian.
The first scoop and flavor of the affogato give a unified sweet and bitter impression and seem to balance each other’s taste. First you taste the richness of the vanilla ice cream, then the bitterness of the espresso and finally, you can taste the faint salted caramel which is the topping of this dessert. Spoon after spoon feels how the ice cream melts creating a creamy atmosphere.
As I mentioned above, I’m not a big fan of coffee but affogato somehow manage to make fall in love. Affogato presents something unique starting from the look and taste which both point to different sides. The sweet and bitter flavors, the mix between hot and cold, the different colors and color gradations that are formed create something beautiful. Affogato is not like kopi gula aren or coffee milkshake which I usually order because each spoon leaves a unique impression and and is easy to enjoy.
While I ate affogato, suddenly I thought about something that connected about a little bit slice of life. Today’s life is deeply felt — that life is an achievement accompanied by an expectation that is manifests as a dream. In other words, life goes on with the help of expectations that are made to bring a sense of life. Lately, it feels like life’s expectations are not going as expected, but life must be lived. As if wanting to hold everything but only having two hands. As if a dream only exists as a dream. As if expectations were something wrong to think about. It feels heavy and bitter to exist in a situation like this every day.
Days are presented with something that is uncertain, but it’s cool that I hold on to that with the hope and expectation that I believe will lead to a better life. The choice to survive made me realize that expectations and hopes don’t always lead to bitter tastes, instead they can bring sweet feelings that very often I don’t realize their existence. Sweetness is an opportunity. Opportunities to live a life in a different place, meet new people, try new things, try new foods, explore tourism in the area and many other things. Without realizing it, these opportunities create a sweet taste in life with new interactions. Expectations and hopes present opportunities for each person with a different life plan. Sometimes we must be grateful for the little things to be able to feel the sweet taste of life.
In life, of course, dreams and expectations don’t always go according to plan, but that doesn’t mean it makes the days bitter. We must know that things that don’t go as planned, bring us to other opportunities that will bring the sweetness of the little things that are not expected. Nothing in life is certain and so is expectations. Therefore, there is nothing wrong with facing and expecting life to lead you to good things.
Thus, life is like an affogato. Not always days taste bitter like espresso and not always days taste sweet like vanilla ice cream. But life comes from the combination of the two — the sweet and the bitter. And of course, there are always additional flavors that make life more savory, such as salted caramel topping. There are always cold and hot seasons in life. We only need to prepare well for how to deal with those seasons, in other words, we prepare ourselves to mingle and merge into different conditions. We just need to be sure that the sweet and bitter tastes of all the seasons that have passed have brought to an end point that brings beauty and clarity to life. Just hang on.
That’s how affogato reminds me about little bit about life. Affogato will be my first dessert that presents something different. I hope those of you reading this have the chance to taste the affogato. Trust me it tastes really good! 😉
