Flat white (middle class) habits

I realised something over my morning coffee today. Sometime in the not too distant past coffee became the new wine. It’s probably not going to come as a suprise when I tell you that the coffee in question was decidedly average and I was sitting there trying to work out just exactly what the barista (I’m being charitable) had done wrong. Was the coffee overcooked? Was it the milk? Did it have something to do with the kind of beans? All these questions, are, you see prime examples of just how coffee is these days, just like wine, something to bitch about.

This probably explains the cuts backs at Starbucks . There’s nothing to be gained by drinking Starbucks coffee these days because it just doesn’t cut it in terms of cultural cache. In Australia at least its just *too* easy to make fun of the bad coffee at Starbucks: the big cups, the bad uniforms, the decor (oh! the decor!)

I’m not really saying anything new here. You know it, and I know it and we all bitch about Starbucks. And others, much to my chargrin have said it all already and with lucrative book deals behind them. So, hats off to those guys. It still doesn’t explain however just when and how coffee got to be so indelibly associated with aspirational lifestyle culture. I’ve been to Italy, people don’t swan around wanking on about an adorable little spot just by the Lido where Antonio the barista knows just how you like your morning macchiato (NB: Tourists do this). One of the refreshing things about Italian coffee is that it gets slung out to you across a bar by people who are largely indifferent to your preferences and you get one of two choices – espresso or cappuccino. The coffee is unfailingly good no matter whether you’re in Rome at a cafe or in a bar on the side of the railway platform watching Italian lottery on the TV. Even the auto-machines on the trains make excellent coffee. And not once does anyone have to comment on the incredibleness of this consistency. No one says a word about Antonio’s sheer brilliance or about his masterful handling of the machines. You order, you drink, you leave. You don’t make a song and dance about it. It’s not because Italians are exceedingly restrained – or don’t give a care about coffee. Both of these things are patently untrue.

I’m just going to put forward an educated proposition here and say that for Italians coffee is just life, rather than lifestyle. And it’s not like the Italians have one up on the rest of us here. About a decade and a half ago, America shared a very similar attitude (though their coffee was a little less palatable to the rest of us). Anyone who’s seen Twin Peaks can attest to Lynch’s love affair with drip filter coffee. Garfield used to drank great mugs of the stuff, and he was a cat! A cup of joe is as American as well, as apple pie (for which a coffee is a great accompaniment). So when did coffee change and become something you could drink to increase your cred?

Well, I’ve got a book here on my desk which might hold some answers (Hip: The History by John Leland). But as a rough thesis I’m going to suggest that Starbucks did a lot to establish the idea of coffee as something cool and worth paying more than 50 cents for. I’m also going to say that the Olsen twins have been a serious force. Those two are photographed more often with oversize Starbucks cups than Britney is with underwear–which is saying something.