Coffee - enough already!
Thursday, March 1, 2012 at 08:04PM You know you’re a Melburnian when…you think ‘IF I READ ONE MORE FREAKING ARTICLE ABOUT COFFEE I WILL THROW UP!’ You also know you’re a Melburnian (and apologies to the back page of The Sunday Age X 2) when you find yourself writing in caps for emphasis and realise you’re hoping to channel Danny Katz, in the vain hope that you might be even a quarter as funny as he is.
But back to the coffee. Free with last Friday’s paper, Age readers received just what we all need so badly – The coffee army handbook 2012 – just shy of 50 pages of beautifully produced photos and text about the best places in Melbourne to get your caffeine fix. Complete with arty rings of faux coffee stains on every page.
Well I don’t know about other subscribers, but I’VE HAD ENOUGH!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m partial to a decent coffee. Two or three times a week I will spend good money on one, and feel a little cheated if it’s not up to scratch. And the Melbourne obsession with coffee is endearing up to a point. As are our quirky, grungy laneways with their café culture that is probably one of the most harmless ways in the western world of having fun.
But I think we’ve all gone a bit nuts. Make sure your barista works only with fair trade beans by all means, but do we really need hundreds of different varieties of beans (100 percent Bolivian single-origin anyone?) Not to mention the machines (with costs ranging from a cheap and nasty $7000 Wega Atlas to the piece de resistance, a custom La Marzocco Mistral, a steal at $30,000). Then there’s the milk – it’s important to ensure the cows that produced it were eating the right kind of feed at the time. Of course.
And while I’m being a grumpy old woman, I’m also over photos of young hipsters standing artily in front of an exposed brick wall or artisan crafted table or old school shop counter, or leaning back on Bentwood chairs. Am I the only one who feels there’s something a little self-conscious and self-indulgent about all this?
Clothes, food, wine and coffee can be a lot of fun. But we seem to have turned the pursuit of the perfect shoe/wine/degustation menu/latte into a religion.
I suspect that this obsession with the perfect, to be found out there somewhere in some paradise of cool, stops us enjoying more ordinary stuff that we can do and make ourselves. The colossal popularity of cooking shows and competitions are a case in point. I get the feeling that the more people watch cooking shows, the less they make their own food. Just as I reckon the people with spotless stainless steel kitchens tend to mostly eat out; it’s the more humble kitchens that get to see the real action.
And, call me a moralistic kill-joy, but apart from anything else, there’s something a little obscene about spending so much time, energy, money and newsprint on finding the perfect coffee in a world where millions of people don’t have clean water.
Reader Comments (8)
Amen to that!
An acquaintance of mine recently acquired a television for the first time in a while. He said, "There are only two types of programs nowadays: shows all about cooking, and shows all about losing weight."
If a magazine is short of ideas these days, the editor says, "Must be time for a fashion edition. Or travel edition. Or food edition. But we'll make it seem special by calling it The Fashion Issue or The Food Issue or The Coffee Issue.."
And you know you're a Melburnian when the first thing you read on a Sunday morning, over a freakin' coffee at a funky corner cafe that was once a humble down-to-earth milk bar, is the Sunday Age column called You know you're a Melburnian when...
Clare, I heard you read to our mutual friend Harriet at her recent 60th. She has sent me your connection and i have read several of your pieces.
I like the simplicity and the ordinariness of your topics and the way you cast light on our humanity and our shared lives.
thankyou. I will continue to enjoy reading your writing. Jenny
ps. I'm the friend who 'lent' her the large red bowl!
I agree! Come up to Beechworth any time and we'll make you a coffee (the cheapest fair trade we can get in the supermarket) with our percolator and a saucepan on a battered old stove in a much loved and much used kitchen. We can sip it on the verandah in battered mugs that don't match... no grungy laneways or exposed brick walls in sight.
Up until I read this article, I would have travelled miles for a good coffee created by a striking-tattoed-artsie-mole skin carrying-hipster.
But by golly have you got a point!
Just so long as you keeep on enjoying good coffee 'two or three times a week'!
Nice one Clare! When eating and drinking become competitive as to who has the best beans/grind/recipe/secret ingredient/plating technique/venue/etc then we've forgotten what hospitality is and that the real joy of eating and drinking in company is the sharing in whatever the host has to offer to us. And in a world where we Westerners consume so many of the world's resources (including its food) we ought not to be boasting about our consumption of anything. Keep up the good work.
Your know you're a mellburnian when you have to complain about everything.