Hipster coffee enthusiasts have taken the joy out of coffee
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Coffee is multifunctional: For some, like me, it's a morning necessity. For others, it's a once in a while indulgence. And for a select few, it's a sugary treat — something that's more akin to dessert than mandatory fuel.
Regardless of what purpose coffee serves for you, the beverage is at its crux pleasurable. There's nothing like stopping by at your local coffee shop, grabbing a beverage and reveling in that first sip. In a world where global atrocities continue to make headlines and the onset of another debilitating pandemic doesn't seem like a far-fetched concept, coffee provides a bit of a reprieve.
That, however, has been tainted by hipster cafes: swanky spots with fancy barista gadgets, beans sourced from an array of exclusive locations (like coffee excreted from civet cats found on the islands of Bali!), and a menu that's shorter than my weekly grocery list. If the unconventional coffee isn't enough to grab your attention, the eye-catching aesthetic certainly will. Such cafes are either riddled with minimalistic decor or filled with a superfluous amount of plants and wacky artwork.
Hipster cafes — which is basically a euphemism for high-end, overpriced coffee shops — have long existed as an extension of so-called "coffee culture." The fact that the term "culture" is even associated with coffee is pretty cringe. But so are the folks who wholeheartedly embrace it. Liking black coffee, as opposed to a PSL or frappuccino, is suddenly a measure of one's caffeine expertise, instead of just a simple drink preference. Flaunting where and how your coffee beans were sourced is suddenly a symbol of superiority. And comparing how debilitating your own caffeine habits are suddenly determines whether you're even worthy of drinking the darn beverage.
That's all to say that "coffee culture" is pretentious. As described by one Redditor in a 2020 post titled "Coffee culture is just as annoying/cringey as weed culture," people "use it as a crutch for gaps in their personality." Hipster cafes are only feeding into that culture, providing customers the standard drink options of an espresso, an americano, a latte, a macchiato and maybe one or two funky creations just to spice things up. Ask for a frappuccino and you're bound to get several side-eyes and snarky remarks.
It's no surprise why hipster coffee enthusiasts and cafes carry with them an air of superiority, considering that coffee shops have long been a marker of gentrification. It's a tale as old as time: a swanky coffee shop marks its territory in a historically low-income neighborhood, meaning trouble is on the horizon.
We've seen this process play out in real time and in various works of entertainment (albeit, satirically). In the black comedy thriller series "The Curse," a whitewashed minimalist coffee shop is built within the city of Espanola, New Mexico, under the guise of providing locals with new income opportunities. However, the reality of the situation is that the shop primarily exists to mass-gentrify the town and amass good publicity for an HGTV couple and their controversial new series, "Flipanthropy."
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"The coffee house has always been a mark of sophistication…and a barometer of gentrification," coffee historian Matthew Green told The Guardian. "Even going back to [the] 1650s they were a sign of a rising tide of economic prosperity, because that's when there was a trade boom."
In the United States, the first coffeehouses were created as places where business was conducted. Take for example Merchant's Coffee House, a Wall Street-based shop where merchants organized to create both the Bank of New York and reorganize the New York Chamber of Commerce amid the 1780s. Coffee was seen as a patriotic drink in the colonies following the Boston Tea Party, but it was also a snooty one. Coffee was the go-to beverage of intellectuals, free thinkers and creatives. Those esteemed enough to fuel real change in society were also noble enough to drink one or two (why not go crazy and have three even!) cups of fresh coffee.
Hipster cafes continue to cater to a subset of drinkers who can only be described as a modern-day iteration of those early caffeine aficionados. Their coffee remains "Black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love," a Turkish proverb that also encompasses the die-hard attitude that so many folks have for their cup of joe.
Earlier this week marked National Peppermint Latte Day. So to celebrate, let's just allow people to enjoy their coffee how they please. There's no shame in enjoying a cup of coffee filled with all the sugary toppings your heart desires. There's only shame in judging.
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I drink Hills Bros, or Maxwell House, and have recently started using Pilot Coffee, which is a house brand sold at the Pilot truck stops. I tried it on the basis that a truck stop would have good coffee, and since they sell it ground I tried it and liked it.
I also think that Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds ground coffee from the grocery store are both pretty good.
Sanka is the best decaffeinated instant.
A great coffee.
I love Drunken Donuts coffee! My granddaughter asked me why I call it Drunken Donuts. I call it that because I see lots of folks I know that like to drink on weekends who congregate there hung over before work for the caffeine boost.😁
it was either a dunkin or mr donut that started my coffee habit 50+ years ago. I usually needed a caffeine and sugar jolt between classes in the morning, sandwiched in between an attitude adjustment in both directions...
to this day, I've never been inside a starbucks. I'm still trying to work thru paying more than $1 for a cup of coffee. I had to buy a new backpack last year to transport a 5lb container of folger's black silk to mexico for a friend. that created an interesting experience getting thru security for my flight there. who takes drugs to mexico? if somebody can turn water and coffee beans into a successful business somewhere, more power to them. my nephew roasts designer coffee part time for an internet based coffee company that does pretty well. I drink 2 or 3 cups in the morning for the taste and a kickstart to my day.
I've been in a Starbucks two or three times. I was underwhelmed.
They over-roast their coffee, IMO. I don't use cream or sugar, so there's nothing to help smoothe out the flavor.
My perpetually broke brother developed the habit of purchasing several large high-end coffees daily thirty years ago when he was a young hipster living in San Francisco. Thus meaning, he has surely spent well over $100,000 on coffees in that time ..
Starbuck's is way too expensive and their caffeine content is one of the highest. I don't need that much caffeine.
That’s why they call it Charbucks. I’ve learned that it makes more sense to spend money on good beer, not fancy coffee or fufu wine. You can taste the difference with high quality beers. I’d fail a blind taste test with coffee and wine 50% of the time.
Good heavens, no.
I have been in Starbucks, but it has evolved over time. Early 1990's in Seattle was a really good time for coffee. They had Starbuck's of course, but they also had Seattle's Best Coffee along with a myriad of streetside vendors and independent coffee houses. Over time they have kind of morphed into the sameness of franchise hell.
Mmmmm, love good coffee. Dark, strong with just enough sugar and cream to raise the flavor and temper the bite.
Went from being a member of Gevalia coffee club back in the day to completely avoiding anything with caffeine in it these days. Neither my stomach nor my nerves can handle it anymore.
A few months ago my oldest grandson and me were in Sedona, AZ and wanted a cup of coffee. Walked into a hipster coffee joint and the pretty young barista rattled off a mouth full of choices. I let her do her spiel and finally asked her if I could get just a plain cup of black coffee. The young woman just stood there and stared at me for a few seconds with her mouth open before saying she did not know if they could do that. Hardly nobody ever walks in there and and asks for that. I looked at her and with a straight face and asked if she could or did I need to go to McDonalds. She finally found some regular coffee grounds stashed away in a cupboard. Costume around $5.00 bucks for a small cup of coffee. My grandson told me afterwards that it was all he could do to keep a straight face. Wasn't even a decent cup of coffee 😏
I used to use a lot of milk or cream + sugar but stopped. Now I drink Cold Brew which I "brew" myself. I drink it black-- Cold Brew on its own is much less acidic than regular coffees. (I do add a little Cinnamon and powdered Ginger root).
I remember Gevalia coffee club, me too. There's only one coffee I like now that I drink at home, it's called Kauai coffee and it's a vanilla macadamia nut flavor, love it,
Other than an iced mocha latte now and then, the above mentioned is the only one I drink at home now
I don't drink coffee after noon or I'm up half the night.
There's no such thing as too much caffeine. 😉
But Starbucks has a light (blond) roast coffee which is smoother and packs s better caffeine punch than the other roasts.
I add sugar free french vanilla to my cup, so I can gulp it for my morning kickstart.
The epitome of the "hipster cafe" has always been Starbucks. The place where coarse tasting coffee is expensive.
Never darkened the door of a Starbucks.
At one time, we had a Starbuck's kiosk in the local Safeway store. It lasted less than a year in my rural border town. Locals did not feel like paying outrageous prices and they closed it down. People were just as happy going to McDonald's a half a block away for coffee. Safeway closed about a year later due to a Walmart Super Center across the street. I bought one cup of coffee from that Starbucks just to try it out and only drank less than half and threw the rest away.
Here in MA they have to compete against numerous coffee companies, most noteworthy is Dunkin Donuts. Usually, you find a Starbucks in an affluent neighborhood. Around here is a sick status symbol.
Funny thing is that the Walmart across the street recently opened a Dunkin Donuts in the store and is doing great business.😁
We have them doing that here too. Once a week the Walmart + DD is part of my morning routine.
Lavazza in all of its manifestations ... just another thing Italy gets right every time.
I drink either Maxwell House or Kirkland's Colombian from Costco at home. As far as restaurant brands, Dunkin Donuts makes good coffee, and so does Cracker Barrel.
I drink lattes. Espresso with unsweetened almond milk. I make them myself at home.
domestic elitist snob...
/s
My old fashioned percolator makes the best coffee.
I haven't seen one of those in ages.
I use a Farberware 12 cup which really only makes five mugs. It tastes vastly superior to drip coffee. "Try it, you'll like it"...
My favorite coffeemaker so far was my Bunn, but one vacation when I unplugged it so it wasn't keep the reservoir warm unnecessarily, it decided to go to sleep and never wake up. Now I have a Ninja Coffeebar, which is more versatile, but I still miss my Bunn.
No matter the brand, I wear them out...
I've worn out several Keurigs, to the point I won't buy another one. The water pump never seems to last.
The Bunn was pretty old.
The Ninja has lasted quite a while.
My Mom, yes she is ooold, was parting with some kitchen items she does not use anymore, but she held tightly to her 65 year old Corning Ware percolate that works on her gas range even when the electricity is out. During ice storms etc. her friends come by to visit her because of it. She says a replacement costs $150 today...
She’s a smart lady. I have had a camping percolator for decades now. After a hurricane hit the DC area in 2003 and we were out of power for around five days, we served neighbors coffee.
Yes, smart, she loaths insincerity and disingenuousness.
I have a metal camp percolator, but had my eye on hers...
I had a Keurig for quite some time until it died months ago. I wouldn't buy another one. I like them but those pods can be kind of expensive and I forgot how much I prefer freshly ground coffee over 'instant'. There's no comparison IMO.
Who doesn’t l?
Smart lady indeed!
you can get a reusable pod substitute/insert that will use whatever coffee you put into it.
That's what I used with my Keurig. I bought the pods for drinks I didn't drink often, like decaf coffee. The kind of stuff that would lose its flavor before I got around to using it all.
my granny and a neighbor lady both swore by their electric percolators that never got more than a tap water rinse on the interiors during their service life. coincidentally, they both made coffee that would stain your teeth beige.
mine came with one of those but I never used it
instant sanka decaf was the secret ingredient in the award winning chocolate mousse recipe at the dinner house I worked at in the 80's.
Back in the day, around the campfire, dad would just toss a hand-full of coffee into a pot of hot water and then break an egg into it to settle the grounds after it had steeped for awhile.
Good coffee!
Do you mean an egg shell or the entire egg(s). Poached eggs and coffee?
The egg would coagulate and bind with the coffee grounds and settle to the bottom of the pot. No filter needed.
These days I just toss in a pod of coffee and let it steep for a few minutes. Why waste an egg?
When going to a coffee house in Vienna our guide told us not to just order a coffee without a menu or they would look at us like we were crazy. Good advice as the coffee menu was 6 pages.
I gave up coffee as a daily ritual long ago. To get my heart started in the morning my choice of beverage is Mt. Dew or its generic equivalents. A bit of caffeine and sugar plus a couple Tylenol get my day going in the right direction.
Coffeehouses ... my foray into them lasted throughout the 1960s and coffee came black or white set next to full ashtrays and secondhand copies of Kafka, Kerouac and Sartre. It was an era of ennui and nausea awash in rapidly fading love affairs. That they later became emporiums housing the Cranes and their muddle of me and mine was, alas, inevitable.
a friend of mine can't get his day started without a large cup of tim horton's and a refill.
Ahhhh, ''Black Water Medicine'' is the necter of the Gods.
With a health splash of uisce beatha ... and what to listen to.
Nice Lyrebird imitation!
Evening...ahhh our Aussie Lyre bird...a fantastic imitator of both animal and human noises..
The bird call at the end is a Kookaburra great snake catchers...
freakin' oz peacock/mynah bird combo...
🤣🤣🤣 when only the best will do..
At least this one is harmless..but there again if it learns to imitate a gun shot....could be heart attack material...
I thought I heard it imitating background voices more than once...
They can copy up to 40 odd calls/ noises..
Best ones I have heard is a chain saw and camera..
If you google them they have an excellent variety of their calls..
I did. it's hilarious.
If I don't go to Sheetz for coffee. $1.00 if I being my refill cup, I make hot tea. We have a Starbucks, that I call Sixbucks, but i have not been there.
Speaking of coffee back in the day when I lived in OZ we were traveling from Bridgetown WA to a Station inland about 250 kilometers and stopped at a bilabong and met this old fellow and we sat around his fire singing Waltzing Matilda until the early hours. He heated water in a billy and threw in some grounds and called it coffee. I was one of the most fun I had while in OZ. He would be called a Swagman we might call him a hobo here but it would not be true. He was a free man that lived by his own drum.
The Australia National Anthem by Slim Dusty.
Anyone here remember the movie On the Beach? (IIRC in the sad ending scene Waltzing Matilda is playing in the background....)
When a crew member left the sub and was swimming back to his home town, which I think was San Francisco but it was a long time since I last saw that movie so I'm not sure of the city.
Arvo...he would be called a Swaggie more than a Swagman..still see them once in a blue moon these days..
Ahh Slim, we miss you..🦘🦘
When I started drinking coffee, and we're talking about around 70 years ago it was a dime a cup at a diner. I refuse to even go into a Starbucks to pay what I could eat a whole meal for just for a cup of coffee. Although Starbucks has been here for years, coffee culture is just starting to take off here in the land where tea always ruled and small individual-owned special coffee houses are now opening up. I once posted an article here about one. However, the only coffee I have been drinking since I got here is a ground blend that I buy by the 3/4 lb can, an imported Japanese product - UCC original blend ground coffee:
I drink a mug of coffee every morning with breakfast, brewed in my Philips coffee brewer, and since I enjoy it it's good enough for me. I'm not a coffee afficionado.
Arvo...it's capucinno for me everytime..
Have these at home and a proper capucinno at the cafe..
I think the closest I may get to this hipster nonsense is Black Rifle Coffee.
I live near hipster central. It's all about summer tourists and liberal hipster dining and micro breweries. Other than summer traffic none of it impacts my enjoyment of anything. I rarely go out "for coffee" anymore and I don't like crowds so I'll grab my favorite micro brews to go. If I want one of those fancy over priced samiches I can order online for pickup too.
Morning evil..I am with you..not fussed by large crowds (covid is in the increase here again) so I tend to avoid them...or depending on the weather sit outside the cafe that over looks the harbour...
Otherwise I get a takeaway cappuccino and go to my favourite place and enjoy the peace and quiet... usually the beach...
Lemon tart and capucinno..
Looks great!
what? no vege-paste?
Arvo Devangy....paste!!. paste!!...how could you...sacrilege..gasp!! We could declare war over that..😁
Nahhhh usually have veggie for brekkie... occasionally for sangas at lunchtime or snack after tea..😁😁
You mob don't know what you are missing...you can even get jars with a persons name on it now for Christmas presents..😁😁
It was..burp..🎄🎄🎄