I have limited knowledge of coffee. It's a liquid form of coffee cake and is very popular with people. I am vaguely aware of the different types available because of my interest and commitment to popular culture. There's Latte for example, as well as double-latte, cappuccino, double cappuccino, cappuccino and egg, Expresso, Expresso and egg, Americano coffee double-bubble with egg. Basically, there are a shit-load of different coffees.
A couple of years ago I came to the conclusion that I was missing out and walked into my local coffee shop to try and get involved. I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I simply asked the lawyer behind the counter for, “a coffee”.
“So you want a cappuccino?” she replied. I shook my head and at that point knew this wasn't going to be straight-forward.
I never did get a coffee. I felt, that both me and my potential server tried our best, but we just couldn’t make it happen. There were moments when it was close, when she even went to take a cup from the pile behind her, but just as it looked like it was going to happen, another misunderstanding acted as a reset. After 10 minutes of discussion, and with the queue of people behind me growing to over 70, it was time to cut my losses.
“I’ll just have a tea?”
She shouted at a colleague who was de-cupping a table, “Jake, Do we have a teapot?”
“You don’t need a tea-pot to make tea?”
“How do I do it?”
“It’s in that folder behind you.”
“Ok…..There’s hundreds of pages in here, where’s the tea?”
"At the back."
"Which section?"
“Miscellaneous Drinks”
I held up my hand, “It doesn’t matter.”
A sad story, but that’s fine, it’s a coffee shop. I'm a clown performing in their arena. It was arrogant of me to think I could just walk into a coffee shop and order a coffee without going on some kind of course first..
But fuck-off out of bakeries, seriously. Every time I go to buy a pasty there’s some caffiene-dribbler ordering a double-misty-latte. I wouldn’t mind, because as you’ve probably gathered I’m completely rational and patient, but the process is as long as it is ridiculous:
A perfectly friendly baker will transform before your eyes from a puffy white-hatted cuddler into a fiery-eyed Stepmaster. They'll address a machine bigger than a horse and start to carry out a series of ridiculous actions. They will grab a random implement, stuff some “coffee” in the end of it, and then start whacking said random implement against the machine in the manner of someone who’s got their coffee stuck in their random implement by mistake. There's a frothng liquid that is produced very carefully before being quickly discarded. Finally, after a series of incredibly long and inconsequential random actions, a cup of some kind of coffee is produced. Unfortunately, because of the delay, all the baked goods have become stale and are thrown away. That's why now, most bakeries, only sell coffee and no longer sell baked-goods.
And it’s not just coffee shops, pubs, bakeries, museums, and swanneries where coffee is now served. According to the Office for National Statistics there are more coffee shops in the UK than there are houses, yet people now want to order their pretentious beverages in every other building that exists. It seems like the owners of every other building are only too happy to get involved in this pantomime.
I’m old enough to remember what it was like before coffee, and whilst I don’t think we will ever get back to drinking tea and eating biscuits, it would be nice to be able to get onto a bus without the being 30 minutes late to your destination because the two hipsters in front ordered Frappuccinos from the driver. And that's with the correct change.
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