User:Janina/Coffee fishbowl

Date: 2025-05-13

Present: Janina, Tilmann, Gwen, Pju, Astrid, Timber, Thomas, Marynia, Lena, Larissa, Matthias

Minutes: Janina

Frame: 1,5 hours, 4 chairs in the middle

Minutes

Pju: I personally don't drink coffee. It's not good for me. I do appreciate Thomas making coffee for the free shop. I wouldn't need that high quality for it though.

Tilmann: I was neutral towards coffee until I realized that many people are quite dependent on it. Like my parents, who drink coffee everyday on several occasions and they don't seem to be able to do without. That doesn't look like voluntary enjoyment to me, but rather like problematic addiction. I also perceived this in Kanthaus in the past: There were moments when we ran low on coffee and some people got really nervous. That's when it became clear to me that coffee is actually a quite potent drug, even though I myself don't react to it that strongly. I started to wonder if we are making this drug too readily available in Kanthaus and the recent developments did not help too ease my concerns in that direction. The freezer discussion for example showed very heated emotions.

Pju:The freezer thing was unfortunate. Maybe the amount of coffee beans frozen was just too big?

Tilmann: There was never such a strong reaction towards unfreezing meat or using it in 'the wrong way'.

Thomas: At the moment it's 8kg in the freezer and we use 1 kg per week.

Tilmann: Sounds crazy much...

Thomas: Well the freezer space will be available in summer, as you, Tilmann, said is needed.

Gwen: You, Thomas, said the coffee is communal, so can't we unfreeze it to make space for food if we judge that food is more important than coffee?

Timber: I was part of making the decision to take the coffee out and I stand by it. I doubt that it really needs to be frozen. The difference in taste is so marginal.

Pju: For me the amount makes a difference since it's a luxury good and many people don't have anything to do with it.

Thomas: There is also weed in the freezer which I have nothing to do with. But I don't want to speak about the freezer so much, I see it as a misunderstanding mainly.

Tilmann: We don't produce coffee ourselves, it doesn't even grow here. It's a colonialist product and by buying it we exploit other parts of the world.

Thomas: I don't buy shitty, exploitative coffee. I buy coffee from a cooperative, it's transported on a sailboat and the revenue is used to improve the lives of the people who grew it.

Tilmann: I think you're missing the point of self-sufficiency: If people grow coffee to export, they can't grow the food they need.

Thomas: It's people who need money and I'd rather buy their product than donate money to them as a charity. Helping them grow their business is much more sustainable.

Astrid: How do you, Thomas, feel now that you hear that not many people who live in this community really value coffee? Maybe you could just buy less for yourself and events.

Janina: I appreciate that Thomas makes coffee at events I organize, for me it also wouldn't need to be the highest quality coffee, but I value that Thomas buys the least exploitative beans.

Thomas: 2/3 of the coffee I use per week is for the free shop. To me it is gifting the people a nice experience. It's like a microcosm of how I perceive Kanthaus values: I do it completely consciously, with the least trash and waste possible, using ecologically produced, fairly traded beans that were transported emission free. And I want it to be the highest quality possible as to not make the gift smaller. I like to bring the people a moment of joy, of connection, of exchange. It builds trust and relationships that form a kind of community with the people of the town.

Janina: To me the two most essential and potentially controversial points are the question if we want to promote drugs and if buying a product to make a change for the better is a valid approach or not. On the drug point: People gather around drugs and I'm fine with using this to my advantage when organizing public events. We need to decide which battle to fight when to be effective. When it comes to in-house usage it could be good to put some emphasis on the awareness point that coffee is indeed a drug and that daily consumption, possibly several times, can be problematic. We're not a drug free house, so everyone should be free to consume things as long as they don't bother anyone, but we can and should talk about harmful tendencies. On the point about buying stuff to improve things: I really don't know. I think it's not my approach for sure, but I don't want to completely dismiss it either without good reasoning.

Once more the freezer:

Timber: When I took it out I honestly thought that someone who is not Thomas froze the coffee because they thought that it would mold otherwise. I thought I knew better and took it out.

Gwen: Also, Timber and Flori came home late after saving a lot of bread in Leipzig. There was not enough space and they were desperate.

Thomas: Tilmann put it back in on the next day. There was space.

Timber: I'm still amazed and don't understand how Tilmann did it.

Thomas: It could have been put it a styrofoam box with some cold packs and put back as soon as there is space again.

Janina: That's actually a good point that didn't even cross my mind. But I think the main problem about the whole freezer issue was the communication about it. You, Thomas, had a very strong reaction, so it obviously did something to you.

Thomas: I said it's fine. The coffee belongs to the community.

Marynia: But if you have such specific wishes on how to treat it maybe you should just keep the beans private and just share the coffee.

Janina: I think it would have been different if the coffee boxes had been labeled with 'Thomas'. Taking those out I would find extremely disrespectful, taking out communal items always is a judgement case.

Tilmann: I did take out some meat and the orange peels to make the coffee fit.

Janina: I still have a confusion. You, Thomas, say it's fine and the community can decide to unfreeze the coffee, but from your initial reaction I got the impression that you were quite angry. Were you?

Thomas: Yes I was angry.

Janina: Are you saying that you were angry but that way okay?

Thomas: Yes.

Marynia: Well, maybe then you shouldn't lash out at people.

(the discussion was not immediately over, but the 1,5 hours were and Janina had to leave)