From Mom-Mom’s Kitchen to Global Cafés: A Coffee Ritual That Stuck

I fell in love with coffee before I was technically old enough to drink it.

I was about seven years old, standing in my grandmother’s kitchen after holiday dinners, making coffee for the adults before they headed home. The house would still smell like dinner and dessert. Pots clanking in the sink. People talking over each other. Laughter from another room. And there I was, carefully measuring coffee grounds like it was an important assignment.

Because to me, it was. This was my part to keep my family alive during their hour long drives home.

I loved the ritual of making the coffee. The sound of the drip. The smell filling the kitchen. The satisfaction of handing someone a cup and hearing, “This is good.” They weren’t just humoring me.

That small kitchen full of love probably started two things for me: my passion for coffee and my passion for creating experiences for people.

Even back then, I was experimenting. Adding spices like cinnamon and seeing how little changes created a completely different feeling in the cup. I did not realize it at the time, but I was already treating coffee like storytelling.

Years later, coffee became part of my travels too.

When I moved to London for school at 19, I noticed coffee culture felt different there. In the United States, coffee was often tied to productivity and drinking it while running to the next thing.

London slowed it down a little.

Then Paris slowed it down even more for me when I moved there. You 100% don’t do coffee while multitasking. One of my landlords told me a true Parisian drinks her morning coffee at home from a coffee bowl with a croissant.

I have now had coffee in more than 30 countries. I have wandered through spice markets in Morocco drinking saffron tea that later inspired coffee recipes at home. I have sat in cafés in Taipei sipping rose cardamom coffee topped with dried rosebuds. I have done coffee tours in Medellín … spent mornings in places like Guatemala City, where coffee is treated with ceremony instead of convenience.

And all of those moments shaped Wanderlust Coffee Co.

This brand is not about being a coffee snob.

It is about curiosity and the experience.

Let’s make your morning feel a little more special, even if you are standing in your kitchen in sweatpants before work.

That is why I created the Passport Pack. I wanted people to experience coffee the way I experienced travel: one flavor, one story, one moment at a time.

Because sometimes the smallest rituals become the ones you remember most.

If you want coffee inspiration, recipes, and flavor ideas inspired by my travels, join my email list and explore the Passport Pack at Wanderlust Coffee Co.