Imminent hipster coffee
A few years before we moved back to New Mexico, I met a colleague for coffee. He worked for a wine PR company in the city, and I had done several projects with him over the years. He suggested we try a new place that had just opened south of Market. A friend of his was a partner. After being open for only a few weeks, it was already the trendiest coffee spot in town, if there was such a thing.
The afternoon of our coffee date I found myself near the place a half-hour early. Having nothing better to do, I managed to find parking, itself a minor miracle, and then moseyed in and got in a long line to order. The business was in a big industrial space, with exposed vents and pipes on the ceiling and unfinished wood surfaces throughout. A large coffee roaster was strategically placed just to the side as you entered, like the sacrificial altar in a pagan church. Two thin bearded lads both wearing woolen caps, plaid shirts, and skinny jeans were manning the big machine. At the moment, they were deep in conversation.
The coffee line was impossibly slow. I kept wondering why it was taking so long. After all, it was just coffee we were ordering, not like we were buying a car. But the lengthy wait did allow time to check out the premises. I noticed another tall, thin, and bearded guy just to the right of where orders were placed. He was in the process of making multiple cups of drip coffee using large clear Melita-like plastic cones. Looking up at the menu, I discovered that using a Melita, something I started doing during my senior year of high school in the early 70s, had been rebranded as “pour over.” And a 12-ounce cup of pour over coffee costs $7.00.
Melita guy had at least six orders going, each using a different coffee. He was using a stainless-steel pitcher to heat the water and measuring the temperature with a shiny thermometer. I should also note that Melita guy was wearing a gray hoodie sweatshirt with the hood up. I guess he wanted to focus on the job at hand. Or he didn’t want to talk to anyone. It then occurred to me that wearing a hoodie with the hood up was the equivalent of wearing headphones on a flight. Both are a do not disturb sign of sorts.
As I pondered the mysteries of pour over coffee, I noticed the music in the background. It took a few seconds, but I finally recognized the tune as So What off Miles Davis’s benchmark album Kind of Blue. I didn’t recognize it at first because the LP playing on a turntable on the back bar was seriously scratched. And to make the experience as retro as possible, the sound was coming through a pair of original Bose 901 speakers.
Still waiting in line, I thought about the speakers. I remember seeing ads for the original 901’s when I was a kid. They were introduced in 1968 and revolutionary for the time, featuring nine six-inch mid-range speakers that produced sound in front and back. The concept was that most of the sound was indirect and reflected off surfaces behind the speakers. This wasn’t the first time someone used indirect reflection for speaker technology. JBL came up with the idea ten years before with their Paragon system—a nine-foot long cabinet that the company produced from 1958 through 1982. Regardless, Bose would go on to build a hugely successful multinational company. But those first speakers, revolutionary design and all, sounded average at best. Fitted only with mid-range drivers, they lacked both highs and lows. Like I said, average at best.
Finally, it was my turn. Another lanky malnourished lad with a scraggly beard took my order. For the record, he was wearing an old grey long-sleeve T-shirt. He was also quick to dish up some unwarranted attitude. However, at that precise moment, the stylus on the turntable encountered a huge scratch on the record; one it couldn’t resolve without outside intervention. Until then, a phrase from Freddie Freeloader, song two on side one of the album, would keep clicking and repeating.
“What can I get you?” order guy droned, looking at me like I was too old and unworthy to even be in front of him. I didn’t answer initially, instead looking over in the direction of the turntable where the record would keep skipping for all eternity unless someone did something. “Well?” said order guy. I finally pointed to the turntable and said, “are you going to do something about that?”
Suddenly, order guy snapped to the fact that the record was skipping. “Oh my god!” he said, actually raising his hands to his face like the man on the bridge in the Edvard Munch painting. He immediately raced over to the turntable, gently lifted the tone arm, and placed it on the next track—which was still seriously scratched.
Mission accomplished, order guy was back along with his less-than perky attitude. I opted for a small latte and a vegan chocolate chunk cookie. It was the only kind of cookie they had. The order came to $11. I paid using Square on an iPad. Order guy glowered at me throughout. I tipped 15% even though he was a complete tool. But I also wasn’t going to let him off the hook.
Me: Hey, you know those Bose speakers?
Tool: Yeah, what about them?
Me: That’s an original pair, isn’t it?
Tool: Yeah, it is.
Me: I remember when they first came out. They sounded lame even back then.
Without waiting for a response, I climbed the stairs to the second landing with latte and vegan chocolate chunk cookie in hand. I found a table overlooking the premises and got comfy. The latte was decent even if the espresso was under-roasted and tasted green. The cookie was another matter. If the Penitentes ever opened a bakery, it would be their best seller. It was like eating chunks of dry wall interspersed with chocolate. How anyone could take the fun out of a chocolate chip cookie was beyond me. Why would you do that anyway?
So I didn’t finish the cookie. Instead, I sipped my green weedy latte and watched the employees as they went about their business. The two guys by the roaster were still in deep conversation. Pour over guy was still manning his plastic cones like a scientist in a B Sci-Fi movie. And order guy was still frowning at anyone in front of him. It then stuck me that the team—all pale, skinny, and male—was sort of like a mutant form of the Oompa Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They all looked the same and wore similar outfits. They also looked Vitamin D-deficient. More than anything, they took themselves way too seriously.
Suddenly, my colleague interrupted my reverie. He’d found me upstairs. “What do you think of the place?” he said. “Isn’t it great?” I responded to the affirmative. After all, who was I to say otherwise. And we had business to conduct.
The hipster coffee experience stuck with me for days. Ultimately, I thought the coffee guys tried too hard at everything. If you want to be cool, you have to make it look easy. Otherwise, youth will forever be trying to make their mark by reinventing the wheel. In this case, by putting a new spin on long-established industries like coffee, spirits, and wine. However, there’s a catch. Many have no training on what defines the classics and quality in their respective field. So their versions of new and different aren’t necessarily good, which is not a surprise. After all, if you don’t know the standards that define quality in what you do, how could you possibly have a clue? Finally, if you’re going to work in a service industry of any kind, you have to at least pretend to like people. Otherwise, you should do everyone a favor and go into construction.
In the end, I wondered about my pale coffee compadres and how they will look back on their late 20s and early 30s in the future. Will they stare wistfully at a closet full of plaid shirts, skinny jeans, and woolen caps? Hopefully, they will have moved on to other things. Regardless, I remember my formative years in the 70s. We were hirsute and wore clown clothes. But at least we looked healthier. And we were nice to other people. That counts for a lot.
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I've stopped aiming to be hip. I'm aiming for sprezzatura now
Hipster is the natural wine of coffee