The thinner the air, the more honestly a cup of tea earns its job.

The clouds moved through the ruins below us like they had somewhere to be.

The kitchen was tin and tarpaulin and a single kettle. The woman running it had been awake longer than I had. She poured the coca tea into enamel mugs that had clearly seen a thousand mornings like this one. The water was at altitude-boil — about 88°C, lower than sea level, which is, somehow, the right temperature for coca. [^1]

I drank it watching the first light hit the terraces. Somewhere a rooster, somewhere a bus. The leaves at the bottom of the cup told no fortunes, but they kept the headache off the rest of the morning, and that was enough.

The thinner the air gets, the more honestly a cup of tea earns its job.

[^1]: Water boils lower up here. Pasta takes longer. Coca tea takes the same amount of time it ever did, because coca tea was designed for here.