The Hard Bean Café

Today I stumbled upon a gold mine. I'm still quivering, quite literally, with the sheer joy of it.

Much to my surprise, the unbustling non-metropolis of Hamburg, Pennsylvania, is home to a rock-awesome coffee shop. Not only is The Hard Bean Café rock-awesome, it is quite possibly my new favorite coffee joint. I've done my research, and methinks that it's become quite an honor to be my favorite coffee shop.

Why the Hard Bean is so cool:

• Everything in the place is local--biscotti from a woman in Freeport, baked goods from a lady who just opened up shop in Hamburg, coffee beans roasted in Reading, local art on the walls, and local musicians playing on Friday nights.
• Their coffee is fan-freaking-tastic; mine was one of the best cups I've had in a while (at least since Angela last made me her specialty night-time steamer at the Mill).
• The names of their drinks are cool--their decaf skim-milk latte is called the "Why Bother?" and a shot of espresso in a cup of coffee is the Montana. I had a Montana, hence the jitters.
• It's really, really cute inside--nicely decorated and aesthetically pleasing. It's small, and has big windows, which always receives a two-thumbs-up from me.
  
• Decent prices.
• They have a "Friends Don't Let Friends Drink Starbucks" bumper sticker on the cash register, and don't serve "caramel macciatos" (which are actually caramel lattés in actual coffee language).
  
• The proprietress, Dawn, is friendly and determined to make a decent little forward-thinking coffee shop work in a somewhat backwards (meaning "traditional", not "wrong") little town.

The reason for my discovery was an afternoon with my friend, Peter. We believe in local stuff, so we opted to lunch at our local sub shop, Hecky's. My sub was decent, but Peter didn't care much for his French Onion soup. (Ever waste-conscious, he brought it home for his cats.) The next-door coffee shop stole the show, though.

Even if it hadn't, I would have been thankful for the chance to catch up with Peter. We became friends a year and a half ago working at camp together, and I've been a pretty sorry friend ever since, as most anyone can tell you that I don't keep in touch well. Peter's one of the most remarkable young men I know. He's gone through incredible growth and transition in the past year or so, and he's braved it with equally-incredible grace and maturity. He's done some of the tough mental, emotional, and spiritual discovery that most people don't have the wherewithal to weather until their mid-twenties, if they brave it at all.

I think I've done some similar transitioning in the past year (although probably not as thoroughly or gracefully as Peter has), and yet we manage to connect now just as well as we did a couple of years ago--if not better. The boy has a brain on him like you wouldn't believe. Sometimes I think I'm talking to a rock star, other times a great philosopher, another time a wise sage, and other times a university scholar-professor. Peter is wise, and respectful, and good. I'm honored to know you, Peter.

It was comforting to find someone I felt I connect with so well here. I'm a very different person than I was when I lived in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, and sometimes I feel unknown here--that I am expected to be the person I was five years ago, and never to change. But I was a smaller person then. My world was smaller and so was my capacity for love and for joy and for thought and for understanding. I didn't like myself then, and I do now. I don't want to be that person anymore. Peter reminded me that I can find understanding and connection wherever I go.

He also was gracious enough to let me buy his lunch, and thus pass on a gift that has been given to me many times. I specifically remember all the times that Wendy Eberhardt bought me lunch and sat across the table talking about God and family and boys with me. I often tried to decline her offers to treat me, until she one day told me "Katie, so many people have done this for me, and someday I know you'll do it for others." From then on, every time she bought me lunch, or Laura bought me groceries, or Debi Yancer took me to the movies, I've known that Wendy was right, and I'll pass it on one day (even though in this case, he bought my coffee after, so we were pretty well even).

Peter was only the beginning of that, just as today was likely only the beginning of my relationship with my new favorite coffee shop.