Too school for cool - the coffee chronicles

Recently I've come to the discovery that I am not cool enough for coffee shops.  I enjoy coffee as much as any suburbanite with a liberal arts bachelors, and I know the basic concepts - you'd think I'd be able to get by.  My parents made a pot of Maxwell House every morning until we moved to North Carolina, when they started drinking Folgers (for reasons still unknown to me), but I never drank the stuff until I went to college.  One day a lovely woman who shall be known as "A" shared with me a bottle of what we came to refer to as "pure evil."  Coffee is easy to drink when it's drowned in cream, sugar, and chemical preservatives.  I used to drink one while downing a donut.  Oh, college.  The reckless years.

But soon that wasn't enough.  I transitioned to hot mochas with a fluffy pile of whipped cream on top, plus two chocolate covered espresso beans if I had the very nice barista at the Franklin St. Caribou.  That was just a short step away from actual coffee, which I started in half mugs with a healthy dose of flavored creamer and then moved to about two cups a day of the hard stuff with a splash of half and half.

In a place where everyone wants to "meet for coffee," it's imperative to have conversational coffee-fluency. My non-coffee-drinking partner has the misfortune of making coffee runs for the staff in her office, and it has become apparent she has no idea what she's doing.  This has resulted in hilarious stories of her attempting to siphon the last dredges of a stale Au Bon Pain brew for Very Important People Who Require Coffee or getting ruffled when the cashier at Caribou asks her what size she wants her non-fat lattes to be.  ("I don't know - that's all they told me!"  "But what size do you want?"  "Oh...um, small please.")  In mainstream coffee-land, I'm set.  I can hold my own in the Caribous and ABPs of this world.

But the elite local coffeehouses are a different story.  They make me feel the same as divey breweries with $14 beers and boutique burger joints where you chalk up ten bucks for some ground beef and aged cheddar - bewildered, insecure, and staring blankly at my empty wallet.  I leave those places wondering if I was part of something cool or if I just got punked.

How do I know coffee has reached an unbelievable eliteness?  Because I am elite as hell, and even I know I'm being outclassed.  I'm telling you, I have reached a whole other level of bourgy when Starbucks, the epitome of wealthy white people's adoration and angst, becomes the "safe and familiar" coffee shop.

In case this is sounding like a white whine of sorts ("I demand to feel normal at the elitest of coffee shops!  Why can't I fit in everywhere?!" #whitewhine), I would like to sharpen the analytic lens on these spaces and my own insecurities.  Here are what I have determined are the necessary requirements for belonging into elite coffee culture:

• The right eyewear and shoes (although alternative footwear are also acceptable).
• Apple products. Not necessarily this, because that's really for the 'bucks crew, but probably this, and definitely this.
• Being white - this helps considerably, since you're almost guaranteed to be served by one of your own.  Black people are a plus since their presence reflects positively on the super down white people, but only if they are the right kind of Black people.  Asians with appropriate eyewear and shoes are, of course, welcome.  Especially if they are from the Bay.
• Seriousness about latte art. This is not to be cute, people.  It is an art.
• A high level of coffee literacy; i.e., knowing the difference between a flat white and a latte; the precise brewing temperature for oolong; a preference for smokey or honey notes; the ability to discern between national beans.
• Time.  Drip coffee takes 2 minutes, the press pot requires meticulous upper arm and palm exertion, and that citrus eucalyptus tea ought to steep for 180 seconds, too.  If they hand you a sand timer, you better know what to do with it.  DON'T MESS IT UP.
• Benjamins. Because all of this awesomeness will cost you.

If you have these components, mixed with a healthy dose of cynicism and judgment, you are golden in counter-cultural coffee land.  Since I'm pretty sure my flip phone and Keds would have been acceptable as "ironic" substitutes, I would have had it made except for all of my sociological training.  ("Confound it!!  If only I weren't so aware of how I'm perpetuating social inequalities from which I benefit, this macchiato would go down like butter!" #whitewhine.) 

Coffee shops are this intense locus of class and race culture heavily underpinned by oblivious hipster sensibilities, and it makes me feel a little woozy to go inside.  I love supporting non-chain coffee shops, but sometimes all the pretension and full-frontal whiteness is just plain embarrassing.  If we really wanted to create an alternative coffee culture, you would have thought we'd make it affordable and not have a lock to the bathroom.

At the root of all of this, however, is likely my own privileged sense of entitlement to belonging in any white-centered space.  That, or I'm just as cynical and Judgey McJudgersteiny as the folks who inhabit these spaces ("Ugh! I am sooo over local coffee shops! #whitewhine)...in which case, perhaps I'm just as white as I am socialized to be.