It’s been said that one cup of coffee can solve every kind of conflict.

Caffeine acts as a central nervous system stimulant. When it reaches your brain, the most noticeable effect is alertness. You’ll feel more awake and less tired, so it’s a common ingredient in medications to treat or manage drowsiness, headaches, and migraines.

I woke up craving coffee. We had a trip to Haghartsin Monastery and then to Goshavank today. I saw these beautiful trees, and the earth was covered with red leaves all the way to the Monastery. Then, amongst the trees, I saw this coffee shop. It was all alone in there. But we didn’t stop for it. The driver kept going.

We arrived at Haghartsin Monastery and it was an awesome experience. It was from around ninth to the thirteenth century I think. I took a lot of pictures to show my friends. But I kept thinking, what were they drinking in those days. They had to drink some kind of caffeinated drink, how did they wake up every morning, I wondered.

Then, we moved to Goshavank, and finally, in there I found this man. He was on the side of the road with his little cezve, and he was making coffee. He had a lovely smile. I took his photo as well. We didn’t understand each other. My Armenian friends helped me to get the coffee and to pay him.

We had this moment with the guy. He smiled at me and I smiled back at him, he had a lovely smile. He saw that I was very happy because I had found the coffee. It was the first coffee that I had in the day. I needed it. And thanks to that coffee, I got to meet him. I got to see his smile.

He made the coffee just like the way my mom always did for me. Armenian and Turkish coffee is basically the same. The recipe didn’t change till now. You put finely ground and usually Brasilian coffee in a cezve and boil it till you see the foam on the sides.

These days, there are other methods of brewing like V60, Chemex, Aeropress, etc. They are more modernized and more sophisticated methods of brewing. They try to capture the essence of the coffee, the tastes, the aromas as it is. That’s why I’ve been looking for a filter coffee in everywhere for the last six days.

After Goshavank we came back to the city of Dilijan, where I found a coffee shop. They made me a V60 from an Ethiopian coffee, which is usually my favorite. We talked a lot about coffee, I was delighted and very happy again. I couldn’t help myself to keep thanking them.

I work in a coffee shop in İstanbul owned by Americans, and they taught me everything I know about coffee. I learned how to be a better person from them because we shared our stories with each other with the coffee. And being a barista means you usually drink a lot of coffee. That’s why I’d been trying to find a good one the whole time I was in Dilijan. In our coffee shop, we have a lot of coffee beans like Costa Ricans, Kenyans, Guatemalans and we share them with our customers, with our guests. And we share stories with each other. They come from all around the world as the coffee beans do.

And in these last couple of days, we’ve been sharing stories with each other as Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, Russians, and Turks in this camp. Just like coffee, we all have stories.

In these days,

Not only we have new brewing methods, but we also have internet. We are a new generation. We’re going to continue our friendship online. We’re going to keep sharing stories with each other.

And that gives me hope.