Is coffee cool?
Are we controlled by fashionistas?
No, not coffee being served too hot, coffee the trendy drink, coffee shop the trendy place to be seen.
In my case, it is the idea that good coffee isn’t cool. I’m pretty sure that, for at least a little while, really good coffee was cool. It was hard to find, it was worth travelling for. It was experimental, it was passionate, it was anti-establishment.
In God in a Cup, the start of speciality coffee from ground zero, the leaders in the field are seen as in some way anti-establishment.
But what happens when speciality coffee becomes mainstream, when it becomes commonplace, is it then special?
Is not what matters, sitting down and enjoying a good coffee, not drinking coffee because it is the in thing to do?
In Prague, there is Cafe-Cafe, a very pretentious cafe with pretentious people there to be seen. It cannot be for the coffee, as it is Nespresso.
Bond Street in Brighton, serves good coffee, but you are not made to feel welcome if you do not project the image they wish to portray of Bond Street a cool place to be.
Fast fashion, throwaway clothes, junk food. Contrast with slow fashion, slow food.
A good coffee shop is surely part of the latter, slow food, style not fashion.
I do not like my coffee in a paper cup. I want ceramic or maybe a glass.
A freddo cappuccino is vulgar in plastic compared with served in the right size glass.
I would no more wish to drink coffee in Costa or tax-dodging Starbucks or Caffe Nero than I would wish to eat in KFC or McDonald’s.
I recently was drinking coffee in Harris + Hoole in Guildford. I had to explain to the couple sitting at the next table, that the system was order at the desk, then go to the side to pick up their order, otherwise they would have still been sitting there. It was tea. I helpfully told them the tea should be good. They retorted they did not normally drink tea and would not be coming again. Trying to be helpful, I said the coffee was good. As good as Caffe Nero, they asked. Now I do not know if they were being ironic, sarcastic, but sadly I think they were being serious.
We should regard speciality coffee in the same way we would regard a good restaurant or a good bottle of wine, enjoyed for its own sake, not because it is trendy, that it sets us apart.
Exclusive is always measured by the excluded not by the included.
If I am somewhere new, the joy is finding somewhere that can serve a decent cup of coffee, sadly too often they cannot.
I do not use a guide, it is where my feet take me.
I do not know what constitutes coffee tourism, is it visiting Ethiopia and visiting coffee growing areas, in which case it would require some planning, or is something akin to a pub crawl?
I must admit I did visit La Laguna to visit El Cafe del Aguere. I do not believe you said the barista, La Laguna is a World Heritage Site and you came for a coffee? Well it was true yes, I did also wish to visit La Laguna.
