upscale: careful what you wish for

regarding their wish to be thought of as truly upscale, some time ago i advised starbucks to stop selling tedious food, games, stuffed animals, cheap espresso machines and other crap and stick to coffee. i suggested that a truly upscale cafe experience should include (1) a venue that is much more minimally designed, (2) the sale of unflavored coffee or espresso drinks only (i.e. no tea, cider or milk shakes posing as coffee drinks) (3) without the presence of such condiments as sugary syrup, sprinkles, powders or milk that is not from healthy, happy cows. just coffee. i suggested that charging more money for this experience would help consumers to feel that they were engaging in a truly upscale experience and would, over time, develop a consciousness centered in this kind of experience. the upscale consciousness. that is what starbucks was wanting when they introduced their upscale instant coffee. read about it here.

a few weeks ago i was looking for the tea lounge on seventh ave in da slope. why? my feeling is: their coffee is good enough, and i sought shelter from the cold and rain. i’d had enough of the malodorous basement religious activity that i had been doing with my partner but wanted to wait for her so we could walk home together. so i checked my palm centro and found that the seventh ave tea lounge had been closed. somewhat disheartened, i sought another alternative.

i found a place, but my internal coffee guidance system informed me that it was not acceptable. it had a brightly-lit, large glass showcase full of gleeful cookies and cakes; it was not the proper choice. i felt sad. despairing, i looked across the street and saw something worth investigating. it was: a cafe i had not seen before. it was called: cafe grumpy. or, in my mind, “grumpy’s.”

wifiless coffee spot

it was promising if only for the name. i was hoping for a moody, dimly-lit, reflective, leave-me-alone kind of place with ambient music or silence, no chatty park slope moms, strollers, healthy snacks or cell phones a-blazing.

i found a gorgeously minimal situation. excrutiatingly minimal. a single square wooden bar/table with one or two coffee drinkers drinking out of appropriate cup-and-saucer espresso vessels while diligently reading the new york times. i was excited.

until i saw the menu. and it was a menu, not just a chalkboard. there were exotic beans from here and there and espresso shots cost more than $3. i really just wanted a cup of coffee and was not in the mood for a “tasting” situation so i thanked them and left.

ironically, i was a little too grumpy to enjoy the pretentious minimalism of grumpy’s. that does not mean that i will not go back another day, perhaps on a mental health day, and drink too much espresso.

click here for news of grumpy’s imminent arrival

click here to see the finished venue (this one is in park slope but there are other locations. the “roastery” is located on meserole ave in greenpoint, where i lived in 1987 when it was a depressing hell hole of a neighborhood accessed only by a filthy, creaky, hot, infrequent-running L train*)

a good thing: striking interior
another good thing: no wifi
a bad thing: a disturbing, diverting focus on tea
another bad thing: the crema and foam of espresso drinks seem to be formed into cutesy heart shapes.

* regarding the l train of my greenpoint period (1987-90?), according to my research, the majority of trains that went into service in 1969 were not replaced until 2002-03. you think it’s uncomfortable when you get stuck in a non-air conditioned car in july? ha! that’s what it was like in every car, every day back in the day. today’s l trains are a ride in a bmw in comparison. i think this could be said of most other trains except for the a. it seemed to have good air conditioning even back in the day.

Filed under: cafe_grumpy, coffee, cup, espresso, hand-crafted, menu, precious, pretentiousness, regular, starbucks, stupid things, tasting, tea lounge, coffee

not in the mood

over the summer i was in the mood for sumatra and mexican bean.  specifically, a combination of sumatra caf and mexican decaf, or sumatra caf and sumatra decaf.  mostly the former since the co op does not choose to sell the decaffeinated version of sumatra for some  reason, most likely the same one that underlies the disappeareance of all incense products and of bergamot bath salt.

that being said, if i want to procure sumatra decaf, i must go to whole foods. their bean is very good. it is very fresh. this is an inconvenience because going to whole foods does not fit into my life, the way it is currently configured, conveniently. so it’s a big pain in the ass.

so i was really into these blends for many weeks and months. then i reverted to a darker, oilier bean blend preference which consisted of a newly discovered (by me) dark roast called “organic love buzz” to which i added decaffeinated french roast. this was thrilling, delicious, exhilarating. and became the bean staple of my life. a strong force.

so what’s the problem?

i stopped being into sumatra/mexican decaf  before finishing off the remaining quantity of corresponding bean on the shelf. so it sat there and sat there, and i kept thinking, i’ll get to it. months later i ground it up and am now drinking it. i’m just not in the mood. i have questions.

should i simply wait until my palate changes over? should i try to doctor the blend by adding something darker? i may just have to make it stronger.  it’s sad.

Filed under: coffee, combination, decaf, decaffeinated beverage, park slope food co op, regular, whole foods, coffee

barista correction

recently, i decided that i deserve a latte.

i almost never buy them anymore. in fact, i almost never buy coffee from any coffee brewing establishment anymore. this is because i bring my own freshly ground coffee to work and brew a small bodumful on a daily basis. at times i wonder whether it would be ok to bring other accessories such as a grinder, but i already spend more time on the task of coffee making than most and would be sure to inspire unpleasant feelings and possibly words from the director if i were to actually grind the beans on site. so i don’t. and on weekends, i love nothing more than to wake up and enjoy coffee! in my own home.

please note that coffee! now includes an exclamation point. coffee: a beverage that bends language to its ever changing needs.

please note, also, that i drink coffee in my own home in the morning prior to work. then i go to work and make more coffee but often don’t have the opportunity to drink it until later in the day. the only time i might buy a cup of coffee from someone is during the week when i attend therapy but, as previously noted, i have revisited my choice of subway train which means i no longer pass oren’s. so.

for a special moment in time, i decided to want a latte. it was given to me by my love. the latte was had from starbucks, but there were words. you see, the barista saw fit to correct my beloved in her use of coffee-related terminology. i instructed my darling to request, on my behalf, a double short half caf latte. instead, she asked for a double short half decaf latte. the barista took her to task.

the following is an approximate re-enactment

the barista said, “you mean half caf.”

my love said, “no, i mean half decaf.”

and so on.

my love was informed that what she really wanted was a double short half caf. while the barista may have been correct technically, he was incorrect in the universe of customer service. i doubt that “correcting customer coffee beverage terminology” was part of barista training camp.

in order to obtain understanding, i encouraged my darling to explore this further. i found that she had been thinking incorrectly about coffee and caffeine. she had been using the words interchangeably. they are not interchangeable. she feels that in respect to caffeination, the default, her request for the beverage to be made of half decaf was correct. i explained that using her own logic where caffeination is the default and the standard, that indicating something should have only half as much of the standard would be half-standard. half-caf. because she is not distinguishing caffeine from coffee, to ask for something that has half caffeinated coffee and half decaffeinated coffee requires specifying that it should be half decaffeinated but it’s still coffee – all of it. it’s like this: she is thinking: “regular coffee” is “caffeine” so if she wants to indicate that she does not want the regular thing, she has to define the beverage by what is IN it, not by what is NOT in it. half decaf, not half caf. what is in it is coffee. half of it is caffeinated. that means that the other half has to be decaffeinated.

meanwhile, anybody who has been around new york for a while knows that “regular” coffee used to mean, and in some parts of the city still means, that you want coffee that has milk and sugar in it. this is why people ask for “black” coffee because the assumption is that it should come with milk.

Filed under: annoying, barista, bodum, coffee, decaf, decaffeinated beverage, enjoyment, morning, regular, starbucks, coffee

coffee: the tipping point

it’s not like i discovered coffee or anything. i wasn’t the first to love coffee, and i’ll bet somebody else out there has a tattoo of a cup of coffee, too. but c’mon already. coffee “tastings“? i think i’ve reached my limit. i don’t think i’m interested in learning more about coffee. one day i’d like to own a roaster and roast beans. and it’s probably fine for other people to say things like, I thought the Kenya had hints of curry and cedar, or I tasted nuts and bark in the Guatemalan. You know what? If you taste nuts and bark in your coffee, tell the waiter to rinse out your cup and bring you a new one. Your cup is dirty, and that is why you have the taste of nuts and bark in your coffee. Because you probably do have nuts and bark in your coffee. I taste ants, acorns, and moss in the Peru. I know I’m not sophisticated like these guys and I am starting to think that sophisticated is overrated. There is something deeply irritating about this trend.

regular joe

on the subject of pretention, i had coffee with an old chum of mine. she is excellent. we had coffee in a regular old diner on ninth or tenth avenue. it actually tasted pretty good in the buffalo china cups and all. i realize diner coffee isn’t as good as coffee can be, but i really enjoyed this coffee. it prepared me for the horrors of learning about so-called coffee “tastings”.

Filed under: coffee, diner, enjoyment, regular, tasting, coffee