Coffee talk

I started this blog to talk about tales from the bean. Meaning, the coffee bean. I haven't talked much about coffee lately and so here is an interesting read I thought I would pass along.

All Hail the Mighty Coffee Bean! by Lore Sjöberg:

"I scoff at people who pay a hundred dollars for a speaker wire, or who are convinced that they need a $4,000 dollar PC to send e-mail to grandma and read Funky Winkerbean online, but show me a $50 pound of coffee beans and I'm sore tempted. In the past 10 years I've gone from drinking whatever my employers provided in the break room -- with cream-mimicking, nondairy dust product, no less -- to carefully grinding my beans with a burr grinder and brewing them in a French press for exactly four minutes. There are Cirque du Soleil acts that are less intricate than my morning cup of joe.

What I'm trying to say here is that I give up. I am a love slave to the premium coffee industry, paying for the privilege of waiting for my arabica lover to come and have its way with me."

I found the article slightly amusing because like the author, I often scoff at people who make outlandish purchases. For example, I won’t spend money on quilted toilet paper or bottled water, and yet I have no trouble spending somewhere between $3-$5 for a single coffee drink. Unlike most consumers I have the luxury of free coffee drinks from the café I work at, which probably saves me hundreds of dollars a year.

(I’ve often thought of making the switch from coffee to tea but even with tea, I would be a total snob about what I would and would not drink. Only the best tea would do!)

Of course, I have to admit, I like paying for coffee drinks because I love supporting fellow baristas and the coffee shops I love to go to. So I’m not just paying for what is in my paper cup, but for the experience that goes with it.