Third Wave of Bullshit

Around six months ago I was wandering through town on a Saturday and happened upon a new cafe at the back end of a department store. With half an hour to spare before meeting a friend, I wandered in.

I like coffee, wine cheese and other things that fit firmly in the category of "stuff white people like", but I try not to be too much of a wanker about it. I like things like single origin coffee, Japanese syphons and cat poo coffee because I find it interesting to see what people can make from a product when they apply their efforts to getting the details right. However, I don't rave on about these things to people that don't care and when I'm visiting my parents I can share an instant coffee (white with one) without the need to wrinkle my nose. I like winery tours, but I also like anonymous carafe wine drunk from water glasses.

So there I was, sniffing my way through the "200 coffee flavours" and watching the young men with uniformly bad facial hair gazing at their syphons. I flicked through the menu and picked out a $5 syphon coffee.

$5 is expensive for a coffee. I'm sufficiently commercially cynical that I realise that while the dedicated baristas believe single origin coffee is all about art, the good shop owners actually know about earning higher gross margins and artificially differentiating in a commodity market.

The barista interjected. "Oh, you want the premium beans from the high plateau regions of Mount Kenya?"
"Yes."
"That's a great coffee, but I reckon you should have the Colombian coffee made from 16 coffee beans harvested from the north west side of the sacred tree descended from the original Jesuit imports from 1730."

The advice or staff in a restaurant should always be respected but should always be regarded with a grain of cynicism. If the staff at a restaurant recommend the chicken, this could mean "the chicken is the bast dish on the menu". It could also mean "we have three chickens left over from last night and if we can't get rid of them at this lunch service we'll need to toss them out". I know this because I've been the staff.

"No - happy with the Kenyan."
I sit down and wait for my indulgent purchase and while I'm doing to I skim over the menu on my table. As I'm doing so, something catches my eye. That Colombian coffee that the mo-fo at the counter casually slipped into conversation is $25 for an espresso. A fact he completely failed to mention.

I haven't been back. I like their fit out and Tolix chairs and I like their coffee. I don't like someone trying to screw me with a $25 coffee.

I had only really been compelled to wander into this department store cafe because I knew that the cafe owner had been delivering on my caffeine (and miso soup*) requirements since my uni days and continued to do so through a venture just near my house. The latter was a personal favourite of mine, but I've recently promised myself I'll stop going back there, too**.

The fact is, I like good coffee and I don't mind spending a bit more every now and again to try something out. But if you want to sell a premium product, don't do it by getting having some obnoxious 20 year old kid with bum fluff on his chin try to make me feel insecure about what I'm ordering. I have far more important things to be insecure about.

*miso soup is a top-notch hang-over cure; try it.
** consider this material for a potential sequel