Coffee By Thirty

Now that I’m all riled up thanks to my previous post, I just remembered another snippy coffee shop comment I’ve been meaning to make.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to settle down and think about happy things like puppies and Christmas.

After all the running around and almost getting a space, I almost forgot about the original Lesser of Two Evils post. Silly me.

If you recall, there are two coffee shops similar in every way except one shop uses a superautomatic and the other uses a manual. Coffee wise, which shop is better?

I’d go with the manual myself. While the superautomatic is consistent, there’s nothing special about it. There’s no craft, nothing unique, nothing that warrants a $4.00 latte. The manual, however, in the right hands, is a powerful thing. After numerous mediocre espressos in this town, I have learned I would pay several dollars for a single, decent shot that came from a skilled espresso-pullin’ hand.

On the business side, superautos make sense. That’s why the Mermaid switched — corporations the size of Starbucks need to maintain consistency. Did their beverages suffer? Heck yes. But at least all the Starbucks’ suffer together.

You independent stores running superautos, however, shame on you. You cast a black spot against the trade, you pushbutton monkey trainers. You have sacrificed art for mass production, quality for quantity. I would rather drink handpulled crapwater from a portafilter than the robotic McBrew you dare serve me. I can only dream one day our customers will come to the same conclusion.

Hope you all had a loverly Halloween. A series of doctor’s appointments and day job shenanigans have kept the shop progress at a low simmer these past couple weeks.

Despite the low profile, there have been a number of interesting recent developments. I’ll keep you updated as the paperwork rolls in and signatures cross dotted lines.