Dear coffee industry,
See this?
This is a small cup of coffee. Do you notice anything about that last sentence? You don’t? I’ll clue you in: it’s entirely in English. I didn’t have to use a single fakey-Italian or fakey-French word to describe it. And wasn’t it wonderful? I know, it really was.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind using foreign language words to order in two specific cases. The first is when it’s the actual name of what I want. When I want to order and espresso, calling it a “quick coffee” would be just as stupid as calling a small a “grande”. The words espresso or americano or cappuccino all refer to something specific and are not used as some bullshit affectation to make the coffee look smarter.
The second situation is when I am in a place where they do not speak English. It makes so much sense, right? If I’m in a bodega in the Bronx, I’m going to ask for a coffee. (Note: guys, no, I don’t want 8 sugars in my coffee. None please. I know you think that’s the strangest thing you’ve ever heard, but the correct amount of sugars is ZERO.) If I’m in Mexico City, I’m going to ask for un cafe. It’s just reasonable. I don’t want to have to go pick up some Starbucks and be forced to utter the words “venti half-caf non-whip chai mochaccino latte.” I just made that up. But I bet they’d actually try and make that for you.
I guess, coffee industry, you’re playing into my loathing of being forced to use silly fucking names to order from a place. I don’t want to order the cleverly named smoothie from wherever. I don’t want to order the alliterative sandwich from some other place. And I sure as hell don’t want to use fake as shit, affected foreign languages to tell you I want a fucking small coffee. And, no, I don’t care if if takes 8 hours to make a single cup of drip coffee on your ridiculous Japanese contraptions that drip 12 drips an hour. What a waste of time.
And so to my humble French press, I say, I love you. Thanks for taking the bullshit out of coffee drinking. I don’t even need electricity to make you work, just boiling water and 4 minutes.
Get your shit straight coffee industry.
Curmudgeonly yours,
The Black Laser.
PS – If you see my orange and gray messenger bag around, will you let me know? Thanks.
PPS – You’re still a dick.
PPPS – Unless you return my bag. Then I promise a whole year of ordering stupidly named coffee drinks.