Good coffee is extinct

Now that office begins earlier than it used to, breakfast is a rushed affair, which means the cherished cup of filter coffee must now be carried in a mug in the car to be consumed on the commute to work. The cook likes to fill the mug to the brim, despite requests to be less generous, so it requires expertise and a steady hand to balance as the driver goes over speedbreakers and potholes. Traffic jams cause jerky stops and starts likely to lead to spills perilous to the state of one’s office clothes. Therefore, the coffee is often tepid by the time one manages to drain the contents of the mug over a smooth stretch of road. This means I’m ready for a cappuccino by the time I reach office an hour later. 

Office coffee sucks. Whether it is plain hot water and some nasty powder reserved for the underlings, or a mildly offensive, milky brew off a machine intended for the upper echelons, none of it measures up to the benchmark set by Starbucks. The lads in the pantry try hard to match up but have neither the beans nor the machine to up their game. Perforce, one must cast around outside office for one’s caffeine fix.

Till some time ago, this was not a problem so long as you didn’t mind the sizeable outlay it demanded to keep body and soul in coffee heaven. Dieticians complained the milk was fattening, especially if you needed a cup, or three, daily. Doctors pointed out that too much coffee was bad for your health as well as your sleep. The chartered accountant refused to believe anyone could spend so much on coffee. The office boys summoned to fetch the takeaway bitched about office parsimony when it came to pooling for Diwali tips in comparison to one’s spend for coffee-on-the-go. 

Then market dynamics came into play. First, the lovely tea shop which served great French press coffees moved elsewhere. But there was still Starbucks, till it shut down too, the neighbourhood attracting visitors whose preference was alcohol over coffee. A tiny patisserie found itself unable to cope with maintenance and despite entreaties to stay in business, reluctantly downed its shutters. Another coffee chain that survives has unfriendly, noisy staff that spends the better part of its time arguing among themselves. Most restaurants that feature coffee on their menu seem to have included it as an afterthought, and the indifference shows. From plenty, one is faced with a drought. Good coffee has gone extinct in the office hood. 

To procure a decent takeaway, one must now drive to a market five minutes away, which is too far to ask the driver to fetch a cup that will stay intact as well as warm. Going all the way several times a day, however desirable, isn’t feasible. The choice, therefore, is between coffee withdrawal or bad coffee of which the latter is winning right now. To remove the taste of the brew, one must unavoidably replace it with something else, which, here, means a surfeit of the kind of stuff my wife has banned me from eating — pizzas, fries, samosas, and in a concession to the rains, pakodas. For any foreseeable ill-health, or weight gain, I’m suing the coffee chains.