Dear Customer,

Thank you for decor suggestions. Although we have put a lot of time and effort into our store layout, you only needed 15 seconds to look around and decide what we need to change: masterfully done. We did have experts and many advisors when we designed the store, but you've watched a Martha Stewart special or two. Our shop has a carefully chosen theme and color design, but we will try to make your suggestion of gaudy cowboy art work with it. It also helps that you give your kindly advice to our baristas as they're in the middle of making 32 drinks. Yes, they'll get right on that...what was it you wanted? Oh, yeah, we'll put up some track lighting for you.

Well meaning, but stupid nonetheless...

Here's to you Self-Appointed Spokesman for Ethical Coffee

You stomp around, demanding "only fair-trade, organic, shade-grown" coffee!

You may have no "facts" on the subject, but you're pretty sure of yourself. After all, you did hear the final snippets of an NPR interview on coffee ethics.

Your preachy manner doesn't make you any friends or converts, but man does it ever assuage your liberal white guilt.

You may call "fair-trade" "free-trade," but don't let your ignorance stop you. It never has before.

You may drive a new gas-sucking Range-Rover your daddy bought you, but really, I think that you are right to focus your angry energy on more pertinent issues: Is that really a bird-friendly espresso blend?

Why, dear reader, would a person order a cappuccino in a paper cup with a lid when they plan to drink it in the cafe? Why, when I offer to make it in a beautiful porcelain mug would they say, "oh no, I prefer paper"?
It happened yesterday...twice. The first time, I almost said, "oh, so you have no sense of taste?" The second time, I just filled the order in shocked (and somewhat insulted) silence.

Tell me, does drinking through a tiny hole in a plastic lid enhance the experience?

Next time this happens, they might just get decaf...

I tried a Latte today. It had been 3 months or so since I had last tried one. I still can't understand how people drink these things. Not that they taste bad--it's just that there's so much milk. It's hard to taste the coffee, and it makes my stomach feel so full (in a bad way, not a post-meal satisfied way). I even put in 4 shots so I'd taste the espresso. Still couldn't. Well, not compared to my usual macchiato or doppio.

Don't even try to disagree with me. I am right. Any other opinion is the fruit of ignorance.

Long time viewers will notice a major change in color and layout of the blog and, most importantly, the addition of PHOTOS! A little disclaimer: the photos of the latte art are not my photos nor my art. But you can imagine what it would be like if they were. My digi-cam died this year and I have no photos of my own art. I hope to change that sometime, but no promises.

All this as a lead-in to a discussion of latte art.

Latte art was originally inspired to draw attention to the high quality espresso beverages at Espresso Vivace. At least, that's the story by The Schomer. But I sometimes wonder if the art hasn't become an end in itself. This is most apparent in the traditional cappuccino (6.5 oz). In my pre-art days, I poured some mean caps with lots of foam and no art that tasted quite exquisite. But with the introduction of latte art to my repertoire, I stopped making the the caps as foamy so that I could pour art. I've noticed this at Stumptown and other places as well. Have we lost sight of taste in an effort to impress people visually? Not that these less-foamy, artful caps don't taste good, because they're also delectable, but they aren't quite, well, really caps by my former definition (at least 1/2 foam). At most, they are 1/3 foam.

Then there is the question of, just what makes a cappuccino a cappuccino? Is it simply it's size (6.5 oz)? Or is it the ratio of foam to liquid milk? I kind of suspect that it's more the size than the foam ratio, but that we who pour art in caps are pouring less foam than they would in Italy. I really need to go to Italy and study this...

Just for the Record...

Just for the record, wadding up your napkin, straws, and celophane into a tiny ball and shoving it into your used coffee cup is, surpisingly, not helpful. In fact, if you were trying to make my life harder when I'm washing your dishes, you could do nothing better. I just love prying your used crap out of the bottom of the cup, covered in the remnants of your drink as I ponder the chances that you carry some communicable disease.

Well, some of my fellow baristi and other readers have pointed out that the blog isn't very "angsty."

Yeah, you're right. My first posts were much angrier, but your hurt and worried responses bummed me out. So I started pulling punches. I didn't say things that I wanted to, like "congratulations on being an idiot." I'd really like to say that to some people, but then I think of your whining and protesting and then I start thinking, hey, maybe they're right, maybe I should be that sensitive new-age guy.

Whatever. I'm done with that. I'm getting a thick skin. I'm telling it like it is.

Congratulations on being an idiot.