coffee

The coffee shop. The simple, quaint café that was once your living room on the high street. The most simple of concepts that has transformed into a hipster haven of confusion.

It doesn't really make any sense. I mean, making a cup of coffee is something that even the worst of interns can eventually learn. So why do we find ourselves queuing to spend nearly £3 (a whole pint of actual beer) on a cup of burning, milky anxiety?

I recently found myself in said coffee shop, in said queue, buying said over-priced liquid product. Yep, sound the alarms, we have a hypocrite in the house. As a human centipede of millennial-looking folk stepped up to the counter, their orders sounded more complicated than a potions class at Hogwarts.

What ever happened to a latte, I thought. Is 'latte' not continental enough? Clearly not. The modern coffee order has instead transcended into a haiku of decaf, soy and chai, always ending in 'to go'.

Having witnessed the thespian performance of those ahead of me, I started to doubt my own order. Is a cappuccino 'enough'? Picking that was already a stretch, considering a mocha or, better still, a hot chocolate would almost certainly taste better. In fact, if this is the game that we're playing, we really just want one of those rainbow and unicorns-inducing pink frappuccinos. But alas, this is the coffee gods' world and just we're livin' in it. A cappuccino it is.

Now that was decided, what goes with it? I was suddenly confronted by the ghosts of those that had seen Cowspiracy - 95% of the world's population - and taken it upon their brave shoulders to tell the world about the horrors of 'normal' milk and its hormones. Do I want cow hormones in me? Why is this an issue I'm faced with? I just came in here for a quick break and now I'm thinking about tortured udders and whether a bit of milk in my coffee is going to turn me into a female cow*.

I've taken the noble decision to ask for oat milk in my cappuccino, which is already the second decision that goes against what I actually want. How do they even make milk out of an oat? Anyway, I was doing it and doing it for the cows. I wondered if Nobel Prize winners got free coffee. Probably not. 

There I was, ready to order my cow-friendly cappuccino, when the plot took a further twist. I was the penultimate consumer in the queue, rehearsing my order in my head, when I glanced up and spotted my short-term destiny.

Flat White - £2.50. Oh hell.

I'd heard of this flat white, but never ventured far enough from my cappuccino to order it before. This was what the cool people were drinking now, you know, the proper twats. Well, at a whole 35p cheaper than my original order, I was ready to buy some corduroys, grow a better beard and join the club. 

Proud of my bargain-hunting, I instantly forgot that I was spending £2.50 on something I could make at work. I stood up to the plate and ordered my flat white with oat milk, awaiting the acclaim for saving the planet. I was instead struck with the question that we all know is coming but yet never seem ready for: "Name?" You'd think Jack would be an easy name to say until you're cocking it up in front of an unamused barista. Deduct one social point.

I stood to one side whilst I waited for my order, in the area that always to be the most in-the-way spot in the whole shop. How am I meant to pretend to act busy on my phone when impatient business people keep barging past? Bet they're not thinking about the cows.

My name - Jake, due to the aforementioned cock-up - was finally called and, to my great dismay, I was greeted with the reality of my order.

In front of me sat a stubby cup, dwarfed by the cappuccinos running off with their new partners, which represented the true error of my ways. I, too, felt flat and white. I picked up the pathetic cup and trudged past coffee shop residents boasting both bigger drinks and a sense of leisure that would puzzle anyone working an ordinary job. 

This coffee shop trip had represented a failure and one that shall now live in ancient scripture as a how-not-to guide of how to try and conform to quirky, 2019 stuff. Now that's out of the way, does anyone know how to sort out heart palpitations and a burnt tongue?

*This is almost certainly scientifically impossible, I think...