A Steaming Hot Cup Of Insolence
19 September 2008 | 1:49 PM
Despite the fact that I have no sense of style, it’s safe to say that I’m definitely a snob about some things. OK, a lot of things, actually. However, while I might go into hysterics if someone tries to PBR-me-ASAP, force me to watch a movie with Jared Leto in it or eat any brie that’s not triple-creme, my insufferable elitism does not extend to coffee. Don’t get me wrong: I drink a lot of coffee, and your name would be mud should you attempt to force some gut-rot Sanka down my pie-hole. But that said, if it’s a reasonably passable black suspension of caffeine, I’m generally happy to drink it. I couldn’t care a less if it’s French Sumatran, Equatorial Guinean or Staten Island blend: I just have trouble committing too much passion to any substance whose diuretic effects mean that it’ll stay in my body a mere fraction of the time that the mercury from really high-quality sushi will.
Of course, being a snob in other areas affords me a bit of empathy for coffee-snobs, something which aids me on a regular basis as I often find myself working from coffee shops. I generally fly below the radar of the barristas – usually only calling attention to myself when grousing that I have to use faux Italian silliness to differentiate between smalls, mediums and larges – but I am often afforded a front-row seat to some truly hilarious confrontations over just how (and in what form) people’s coffee will (or, in some cases, will not) be dispensed. Such was the case just a few minutes ago, when a harried soccer-mom-type waltzed up to the bar and asked for an iced espresso. To their credit, the barristas didn’t refuse the woman service or berate her about the damage she was doing by icing their product. Instead, after hastily concocting the illicit brew for the woman, the two be-nose-ringed Statler and Waldorfs have been huddled together behind the counter, hissing none-to-softly to one another in exasperated tones about the lunacy, impropriety and disrespect that a willingness to order such a beverage clearly belies ever since.
Look, I totally get it. These barristas (ostensibly) know their shit, and they’ve dedicated their lives to cultivating and creating a superior product: watching someone come in and turning their carefully crafted cuppa into the drink equivalent of a Wonder bread and American cheese sandwich must be crushing on some level. However, there’s also a part of me that finds coffee snobs – particularly of the sub genus Barristus Indignatus – to be the most insufferable snobs of all. I mean, really: their customers spend dozens of minutes waiting in line to pay the equivalent of the GDP of Rwanda for a cup of joe, memorizing a dizzying array of terminology like “venti double half-frap macchiato” and ensuring that they have enough extra cash to leave in the obligatory tip jar, only to be dressed down for daring to flash a pouch of Splenda or confusing the Guatemalan dark with the Tanzanian ultra-dark. That takes colossal, Bush-administration-sized balls, frankly. If I plunk down five dollars for my Americano and throw an additional buck into the tip jar, I should get to dunk a forkful of Spam in it and drizzle it over an Eggo waffle if I care to. As a web developer, I regular design systems which, when handed over to customers, get dumbed-down and bastardized beyond belief: I can shake my head, but ultimately it’s theirs to do with as they please, and clucking my tongue about it without offering to refund their money is just pointless and tacky.
Anyway, someone else has written about this subject far more eloquently and hilariously than I (shocking, no?). Plus, it bears mentioning that I engage in more of my fair share of eye-rolling and tongue-clucking when someone says they enjoy a good box of Sutter Home wine or admits to liking the latest Bryan Adams record, so perhaps this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Oh, I’m sorry, not black: “Congolese ebony”.
Posted by Andy in Wincing The Night Away