Oh, the romanticised cup of coffee.
Coffee smells like freshly ground heaven. ~Jessi Lane Adams
Every account of coffee shops you read is the same. They are places of intellectual discussion and discourse, filled with intellectual sorts, romantic couples, friends having heart-to-hearts. Jazz music is playing quietly in the background while writers scribble on their napkins, musicians pore over the scores of Mozart’s concertos, life’s quiet observers watch the people on the street outside and the literary sorts bury themselves in Dostoevsky.
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. ~T.S. Eliot
My favourite coffee shop is in Blackwell’s in Oxford. The tables are populated by intellectual-looking students reading and typing away on laptops or scribbling notes in their notebooks (this is Oxford, after all). The tables are made of dark wood. Blackwell’s being a bookshop, a shelf of books is in one corner and customers are invited to help themselves to the contents to read while they sip their coffee. A water dispenser is on the wall with glass jugs in front of it and every minute or two, someone gets up to pour themselves a glass.
Given enough coffee, I could rule the world. ~Author Unknown
However, the harsh reality of the coffee shop is that more often than not, it is an ugly Starbucks or something of the sort, populated by individuals ordering triple mocha banana-caramel American-style lattes in espresso cups with Italian raspberries and Venezuelan caramel topping, where the staff don’t give a damn about intellectual discussion (and probably couldn’t spell ‘intellectual’ either) and where customers are hustled out the door so that the table can be free for the next banana-sipping commuter.
Coffee is the best thing to douse the sunrise with. ~Drew Sirtors
Occasionally, though, one comes across a true ‘coffee shop moment’. Perhaps the coffee shop actually plays jazz music, or there’s a group of men playing cards, or someone gets indignant when they’re asked if they want there coffee black (there are other colours?!), or someone scribbles on a napkin, or there’s someone reading Nietzsche in the corner (sometimes without being glared at by the staff). Maybe, just maybe, the coffee shop doesn’t serve quintuple strawberry frappanissimo espresso lattes with caramel topping.
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee’s frothy goodness. ~Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
I went to the private view of a textile exhibition yesterday. During the requisite ‘I’m so pleased to be here today’ speeches, I was acutely aware that somewhere, there was jazz. Turning around, I saw a coffee shop moment lying on the table. A girl sat at a table, wearing one of the visitor stickers but not listening to the speech, with headphones in her ears, through which jazz was playing. She was wearing a flaming red headscarf and was wearing a fabulously embroidered red jacket which somehow looked even better for the grungy trainers she wore on her feet. She was reading a book, though I couldn’t see what it was. When I walked out of the room after the last round of applause, I could see that she had some kind of curly writing tattooed on the back of her neck and the four suit symbols tattooed behind one ear.
If only she’d been drinking coffee.
