starbucks: bla bla bla

maybe i’m just too tired to get my head around this article. i don’t know what the point is. starbucks almost went down the drain in 2008 (for not heeding my advice to stop selling all kinds of stupid crap not related to bean and bean enjoyment) and now they’ve been found. glory, glory hallelujah.

here is the article. whatever. get big, stay small, bing bang boom. ok, you do that.

my problem is that starbucks is too fluffy and mcstarbucks and then on the other side of the spectrum are pretentious overly serious coffee places that serve ten different kinds of espresso. i find myself wishing there were something in the middle. that doesn’t feel like it is the same thing you’d find in a strip mall in an insignificant point on the map. i miss the old school italian caffes in the village. yes, there are a few remaining but to be honest, the coffee wasn’t always the best. but the ambience! opera, real cafe tables.

i know. it’s time to go to europe. right?

Filed under: annoying, coffee, pretentiousness, starbucks, coffee

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

more coffee pretentiousness.

ok, i have bad news. this is it. it’s the dawning of a new coffee era. this must be what it feels like to our grandparents — well, to the grandparents who are still alive, so maybe parents, but the same applies there too, but you understand what i’m saying hopefully — to see the proliferation of starbucks and the phenomenology of highbrow coffee. for the record, i am not genuinely furious, it’s more like a low grade annoyance. the same as when — and this is true — someone says in a park slope wine store of a certain wine after “tasting” it, ooh, it goes on forever. i’m not going to picket or circulate petitions or take it that seriously. so, calm down.

here are some other precious coffee destinations:

meetthepresspot.blogspot.com
danielhumphries.typepad.com

and then there’s always the news that a coffee company called, and i’m not making this up, Gimme! Coffee, will be locating its badass self in Chelsea Market.

let us agree that it is incorrect to name a coffee, or any beverage or item of any kind, “gimme!”

didn’t we learn in our nonviolent communication studies about demand energy?

the new york times has not given me permission to reprint the following, but i feel that in light of the blatant violations incurred in using the words gimme! and coffee in the same sentence that i should have the right to publish the following.

His descriptions sound goofy, but both actually fall somewhere on the Flavor Wheel, a system created by Ted R. Lingle, the executive director of the Coffee Quality Institute. It classifies flavors (including sweet, sour and bitter) as well as aromas (sugar browning and dry distillation), which are broken down into categories such as spicy and chocolatey.

That way you and I can learn to distinguish whether we prefer chocolatey coffee or more citrusy kinds.

Not every cupper understands all the fuss. At an Ethiopian-theme tasting by the New York Coffee Society, Michael Turkel, who keeps a restored Olympia Cremina espresso machine in his dorm, tasted a coffee and announced, “The beginning notes are sweet.”

Filed under: chelsea market, coffee, coffee quality institute, danielhumphries, flavor wheel, Gimme Coffee, meetthepresspot, michael turkel, new york coffee society, precious, pretentiousness, ted r. lingle, coffee