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May 31, 2005
Coffee
When Derek tries to say goodbye in the morning, pre-coffee, he's happy to get any response from me at all. Usually it's the least amount of movement I can get away with. Anything I say will be incoherent. Sometimes I think I'm saying something he can understand but find out later (when he calls me at work to make sure I got there) that I didn't actually say anything at all.
Coffee on the way to work is something I don't really know how to do without. If I don't have at least a few sips of caffeine before I get on the train I tend to walk into things, swipe my Metrocard upside down, or attempt to enter the turnstile without swiping the Metrocard at all.
Trying to order coffee in the aforementioned state of consciousness isn't always easy, though. Here's what I've learned.
1) There are many ways of ordering coffee.
I'm not counting the stupid Starbucks ways which are just annoying and pointless. Coffee is coffee. Latte frappe nonsense is just self indulgent. At respectable coffee establishments (delis, carts, diners, anywhere but Starbucks), there's an ancient coffee-ordering code. There is "coffee, regular", "coffee, light and sweet" (cream and sugar), and "coffee, black". I'm not exactly sure what coffee regular is, but I think it involves milk and sugar. It seems logical to abbreviate things this way, since people can't be trusted to handle complicated speech in the morning and they're usually in a rush. But I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to order what I want -- coffee with milk and no sugar -- in a shorter way than I do. The shortest thing seems to be "Small coffee, milk, NO sugar." This is specially engineered so that there will be no additional conversation -- the size and milk and sugar questions should be taken care of, right? Except it is ALWAYS followed by the question,
"Sugar?"
...to which I reply,
"NO sugar."
I still get sugar about 10% of the time.
Am I ordering wrong? Is there a New York coffee ordering code I'm not following? Should it be "coffee not regular"? I could ask someone but I'm afraid they'll mess up my order.
Once I saw a man come into a deli and say, decisively, "Coffee." I was amazed when the deli guy didn't ask for clarification. He just got the man some coffee. What kind, I have no idea, but it was impressive. This is what I aspire to.
2) A coffee vendor who remembers what kind of coffee you want from day to day is priceless.
There was a coffee cart guy on Lafayette and 2nd who always knew exactly what I wanted and didn't screw it up. Even if his line was ten people long I would wait. Nothing beats not having to be alert enough to monitor the coffee-making process for added sugar.
These days, I go to the same damn place every single morning and order the exact same thing. I see the same guy behind the counter -- there's never a line -- and he always looks at me like he's knows me but has no idea what I might order. So I say my usual "regular coffee, milk, no sugar," except it's sort of slurred because I'm still waking up, so it's "regulacofeemilk NO sugar", which, as custom demands, is occasionally followed by "You said sugar or no sugar?" at which point I wake up and clarify things because I despise sweet coffee. Even so, I get sugar once a week and don't find out until I'm just far enough away that I can't take it back.
3) You must seek out a coffee vendor of minimal chattiness.
Few coffee sellers in this city have the skill and finesse to negotiate my morning mood, make the right kind of coffee, and complete the transaction without ruining my morning altogether. Coffee vendors who like to strike up conversations before noon must be avoided. I really like the coffee at Dizzy's and I'm willing to endure a line for it, but when the guy there started to recognize me every day and make conversation I had to give it up. The coffee transaction is a ritual. You say something, they get coffee, you pay, you leave. This is necessary because a) my mood is pretty nasty before coffee and b) I'm late for work. I don't want to offend the coffee guy by being a bitch but it's unavoidable if he tries to be friendly. I really, really, really don't feel like talking about where I went on vacation or what the weather's like. I'm just there for coffee, okay?
4) Cheap coffee is good coffee.
Starbucks coffee is like burnt coffee with half the caffeine removed. The 15-word orders and the acrobatics the Starbucks people do behind the counter with the steamers and whatchamacallits are unnecessary. The coffee at the deli is good stuff. It's fresh, it's cheap, it works. Fancy schmancy crowded chains weren't meant to be part of the non-morning-person's routine. Avoid them.
Posted by csageday at May 31, 2005 11:42 PM
Comments
sounds like someone needs to making coffee in the morning as a way of saying goodbye
Posted by: r at June 2, 2005 11:20 PM
Actually, I'd heard the Starbucks coffee had *extra* caffeine in it so people would be more addicted to it. But maybe that's just conspiracy theory talk.
Posted by: Francis at June 9, 2005 03:16 PM
It has less! Starbucks coffee is roasted more, which means it has less caffeine -- so it's all a big hoax (well, at least I think it is). You have to spend more money on a triple extra shot thing to get a proper dosage. The $0.65 cup at the cheap deli is the way to go.
Of course, I'm being a bit of a hypocrite here -- we get free Starbucks at work and I drink it all the time. And it's not bad. I just don't want to pay for it.
Posted by: Cindy at June 9, 2005 03:26 PM