That flawed heart on my coffee art

Every morning, before diving into work, I make my coffee using an espresso machine and a milk frother. For the past six months, I have been trying to master my latte art game. Every morning, I tell myself, “Today will be my day — the day I will pour that perfect heart”. With undeterred spirits, I step into the kitchen, hoping to start my day with a cup of coffee crowned with a beautiful heart. Have I achieved my perfect heart? Clearly not. Have I gotten better? Probably, yes.

Will I continue making my coffee every morning even though sometimes (though less frequently now) it tastes bitter, and the heart is an abstract blob? For now, the answer is a yes.

My friends have all sorts of takes on what my coffee art looks like, comments range from “it looks like alphabets from a language I do not know'“, to “it looks like garlic”, “a rock, perhaps”, “a blueberry cupcake”, “mushroom cloud”, “ribs?”, “are you trying to make a ball or something?” “I can see a leaf”, “a cute cloud”.

When I started my coffee art journey

A few days into the journey

My most recent creation

Their varied interpretations got me thinking about human perception - how something imperfect to one person can be delightful to another. What’s a messy blob to some is a charming cloud to others.

As I sipped my coffee, I found myself transported back to a holiday in Kyoto, Japan. Already mesmerised by the simplicity of life in this city, I was overwhelmed by memories of the small towns I had lived in during my childhood. But I wasn’t prepared for the profound concept I was about to encounter - one that would forever reshape my perspective on acceptance, beauty, and living.

While learning to make matcha during a tea ceremony at a Kyoto tea house, I found myself admiring the blue cup I had chosen for my matcha. I was contemplating whether I should buy a matcha tea cup set for myself and was drawn to the same blue set that was available for purchase. As I continued to ponder, I noticed that the surface of a cup was slightly crooked on one side; it was so subtle it was hardly noticeable.

But my heart wasn’t ready to accept the imperfection. “I like this specific blue cup set but it's slightly bent” I thought.

As I sat on the mat in the tea house, sipping the matcha I had just prepared in the traditional Japanese fashion, I had a flashback to my time as a retail assistant during my university days. Once, a customer I was helping with some shoes dismissed my concerns over a tiny scratch on the heel of a shoe. She said, “It’s not the end of this world and you do not need to worry about fetching another pair for me. There are more important things to worry about, my dear.” Yet here I was, years later, contemplating a tea set that was very close to perfect.

The tea house hostess noticed my hesitation and asked if I needed any help. I shared my dilemma with her, including the story about the shoe. She then asked me if I was familiar with wabi-sabi. (I wasn’t, as you can probably tell).

Japanese tea ceremony that I attended in Kyoto

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese way of living that encourages us to find beauty in imperfection. It keeps us more connected to ourselves. In our pursuit of perfection, we often forget to live in the moment. Wabi represents simplicity and rustic beauty, while sabi refers to the beauty that comes with age. Together, they teach us to find perfection in an object’s rawest form, in its impermanence, and in its imperfection.

In my heart-to-heart conversation with her about the nature of beauty and the perception of perfection, I nearly lost all sense of time and space. A wave of calm and peace washed over me, and I felt a profound sense of acceptance, as if I were letting go of the trivialities that had once mattered. It was as if I were talking to a long-lost friend - a friend offering wisdom, as friends always do when you are lost.

I still find it challenging to fully embrace the philosophy, but I’ve been trying more often lately. So when I don’t get that perfect heart in the morning, I just say “wabi-sabi” and move on with my day.

There’s beauty in imperfection. There’s beauty in asymmetry.

My coffee isn’t perfect every morning. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be — so long as I enjoy it, so long as it makes me happy (and as long as it doesn’t give me coffee jitters).

Perhaps life is all about that? Perhaps it’s about striving, about the journey, about getting better each day.

Perhaps life is all about that broken, chaotic heart on my coffee art!

How my friends viewed this latte art….

“That looks like a two-year-old drawing a heart”
“A love mark” 
“Clogged artery of a heart”

“Even if you can't make it perfect, you can make it better” - Sasha, Barbie (2023)