Imagine my surprise. Listen, my family is foodie to the core. My family was foodie when hipster-foodie wasn't even a bulge in the trousers of the father of a future Brooklyn artisan pickle maker. I was raised on it, my adolescence magically matching up with America's sudden and widespread discovery of flavor, giving Betty Crocker the heave-ho. (Sidebar: Remember when Chinese food was exotic? Watch movies and tv shows from the 60s and 70s. Chinese food was damn exotic.)
My parents drink Folgers (note, no apostrophe), my brother's family does, and my sister's family too -- a family of winemakers, for god's sake. If anybody in my family had an excuse to talk through their nose about the aroma and body of their favorite brew, they certainly would. And my ex (that's the former Mrs. Enobarbus) used to be a die-hard fair-trade pour-over Sumatra sniffer. Buys the house brand at Target now.
Hence, my question. Has the coffee wave broken, leaving little tidal pools of cappuccino foam on the shore of American culture? Will the gourmet coffee business go the way of the cupcake shop?
I suppose it is a truism that when the hip becomes mainstream, it is no longer hip. (The aforementioned former Mrs. Enobarbus herself, in fact, had a rule that stated, roughly: if Mr. Eno has even heard of something, it cannot possibly be the dernier cri.) And a corollary (Razor, you can't tell, but I'm pronouncing that with accent on the second syllable) might be that, once the cultural vogue goes mainstream, the trendy rats not only leave the ship, they denounce it on the way out.
The PBR comparison is apt. As craft beer became mainstream, Pabst became a way of showing that you had a certain disdain for the hoi polloi joining in the fun. (No, that's too cynical. Perhaps, rather, it's a denunciation of what happens to the quality of the product thanks to mainstreaming.) Whatever else it was, it was a clear signifier -- drinking Natural Light would not send the same message, after all. If Joe Sixpack is drinking IPA now, I'm going to go pinch his six pack of Pabst. A bit childish, perhaps, but understandable.
So, now, whither coffee? Starbucks has not crumbled. In fact, I'm guessing they are quite secure. The new Dunkin' Donuts, if you will. But they no longer serve coffee, really. They specialize in coffee-flavored milkshakes and the paraphernalia to go with them. It's been building for a while, but it seems like the perfect moment for a serious coffee drinker to go fully retro. In fact, maybe Folgers isn't going far enough -- opt instead for a cup of mud, a splash of java, a big mug of ink. Hell, the hippest will have ditched their pour-overs and vacuum pots for an old school percolating urn, dribbling out a tarry hours-old sludge that burns the throat and melts the GI tract. (The kind of stuff we drank at my first office job. The boss would throw back a cup at 7:30 sharp, grab the paper, and head to the bathroom for the next 40 minutes.)
As always, I feel bemused, at best. Starbucks, to me, meant nothing other than standing in line behind someone whose order took longer to say than to make. If I get coffee out, it's from the gas station. And for brewing at home? I mean, I saw the brands proliferate in the grocery aisle, but The Ever Cheap and Reliable Eight O'Clock Bean stands out in its saucy red bag, so I never really had occasion to look around.
What, am I above it all? No, I'm just cheap.
1 comment:
Like you, perhaps, I don't have the budget to be a full time foodie. Pick and choose, splurge here, settle there. I was grinding my own beans 15 years ago, but never stuck with it. Coffee, as it turns out, is one of those things that is just plain utilitarian for me. I want it hot and ready when I wake up and I'm fine with Folgers, as it turns out. Though I can't seem to take that approach the next level, down, and buy Maxwell House or Clear Value Whatever. Food, and brands in other products I suppose, is a funny thing. We find our comfort level with something, based on maybe some cost analysis and taste testing, and then we stick with what we know. Or maybe we just stick with what we were raised on.
I know people with perfectly modern tastes in many things who will shun my craft beer for a cold Bud Light (dilly dilly!). They'll post F-book pictures of their culinary exploits, and follow with a PBR. Maybe it's an attempt at irony, or maybe they care as much about beer as I do about coffee. Speaking of beer, I may seek out the new, unique, small, and crafty, but I got nothing against a cold American Lager. That's why we have Yuengling.
All I got for now. Cheers!
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