‘I paid £6.50 for a coffee,” an acquaintance who will remain anonymous, so he doesn’t lose his Yorkshireman card, whispered in hushed horror the other day. He then compounded his confession by admitting this oligarch-priced beverage was so delicious, he did it two days running. There was an explanation about co-fermentation influencing the raspberry-forward flavour profile or something, but my ears were buzzing too loudly with indignation to hear it.
We have long passed peak coffee, but no one has told coffee nerds that: a recent Financial Times coffee guide included an involved glossary and kit that looks better suited to sequencing DNA than making a drink. My home town of York – a city where someone once carefully warned my husband that an espresso is “very small” – is now overrun with serious men weighing and tamping agonisingly slowly before handing over artisanal pottery beakers of acidic – sorry, “fruity” – brews.
It’s no better at home: our coffee machine is less household appliance, more bridge troll, gleefully posing riddles and baffling tasks each morning. The current hero’s quest for hot brown liquid involves trying to fool the over-sensitive “drip tray” sensors by removing then replacing part of the machine at lightning speed while pressing the coffee button before it realises what’s happening. It’s printer-level absurdity and I am done.
I only started drinking coffee in earnest when I went vegan and couldn’t find a palatable tea-plant-milk combo, and I’m still not convinced I like it, so I’ve decided to emulate actor Robert Pattinson and go back to instant. “My favourite thing is instant coffee,” he told GQ in January. “I like it when it looks like oil – that’s what my espresso is, just barely dissolved coffee granules.”
Yes, the culinarily chaotic Pattinson also endorses an unholy pasta “recipe” featuring cornflakes, sugar and a naked flame, but I think he’s on to something here. My first cup this morning tasted like acrid sadness, conjuring a Proustian reverie of being sent to the school staff room in 1986. But my second cup was totally fine; I had already forgotten what “proper” coffee tastes like and honestly, I think I’m happier this way.
Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
