Guest Blog!

All right you foolios, what follows below are the misguided ramblings of one of my (former) customers, Dirty Mick, who is currently moving to California. Please enjoy: They are not half-bad.

Recently I have been in transit, and, in an attempt to recover a sense of place, a moment of warm comfort, I have been walking into coffee shops or sitting down at restaurants and–at first with polite hesitation and now more with a sense of righteous criticism–ordering macchiatos. I have been met with questions, polite refusals, condescension, and blank stares. As I reflect on these caffeinated moments, I will try to appropriately channel our mutual barista friend and steal a little bit of that ole’ Larry thunder.

Macchiato #1: May 29th, Portland, OR.
I wish I could say that this macchiato was from Stumptown (Oh! Stumptown you’re so awesome. We need you Stumptown. Stumptown, love us with your charmingly aloof barista ways and your toasty, magical beans.), but I can’t. Sitting in the Portland Airport, waiting to catch a red-eye to New Jersey, my first on-the-road macchiato was politely prepared by a shaggy barista at Coffee People, a smallish coffee company which, according to their website, has five locations, all in the Portland Airport. This, and the fact that they pride themselves on a coffee called “Weiner Melange,” does not bode well for the company’s street cred in the world of coffee geeks and caffeine hipsters, or a lot of other people for that matter. They do insist that wiener is pronounced veen-er, but whether that is better or worse I will leave up to you.
The barista did politely confirm that what I had ordered was espresso sized and included a small amount of milk on top (he is probably the nicest barista I have met during my current travels). He graciously prepared my drink in a small paper cup and even handed it to me with a slow, dramatic reach so that I might appreciate the iridescence of the marble sized bubbles adorning the surface of my espresso as it traveled through the air towards me. However, I have discovered that the politeness of a barista often has nothing to do with the quality of coffee that one receives at his or her hands–the politeness of a Barista may in fact be directly and inversely related to the quality of coffee a customer receives (a hypothesis that I will subjectively support in any future guest blogs), and I discovered that the airy fluff on top of my drink managed to do little more than highlight the bitterness of the burnt doppio beneath.
I have found some rays of hope since, and I am certainly glad to be distanced from Larry’s caffeine infused bitterness, but one of his smooth, balanced macchiatos ( he does occasionally pour them) would hit the spot right now.

– Dirty Mick