Coffee Review #1

CONTEXT:

I woke up on Market Street.  My coffee review didn’t quite go to plan.  I thought I’d try and do a ‘normal’ post (seeing as my first one was so stupid), but things went a bit weird.  In retrospect, writing a coffee review sounds pretty stupid too…

I love coffee, and when I was brainstorming ideas for my blog, all I could think about was holding a delicious, piping-hot mug of delicious arabica blend. 

Did you know that even unfortunate folk like me, who suffer from spasmodic, life-ruining IBS can drink an almost infinite amount of arabica coffee?

Robusta’s the enemy.  Robusta sits and waits for you to feel so tired, so weak, so desperate for that sweet caffeinated nectar that you simply can’t help yourself.  Then, minutes later, it attacks your bowels like Wes Snipes with lead pipes, laughing its weakly-roasted head off.  Best stick to arabica.

So yeah, pretty much everyone loves coffee, and if you don’t love coffee you probs love tea.  And you know what? You can get both at the UK’s number one coffee chain, Costa Coffee.  These lunatics have opened 2121* cafés in Great Britain alone – there’s even one on the Isle of Man!

I know it’s not cool to go there.  I know it’s full of screaming babies called Alfie, Olly or Jack.  I know it smells of talcum powder.  But there’s something comforting about going somewhere where you know there’ll always be people getting on with their lives.

Tinder dates. Students with Fjallraven Kånken rucksacks, “doing uni work”. Old friends catching up. Businesspeople doing whatever tf it is that businesspeople do. It's timeless.

Decry rampant capitalism all you want, but there’s a reason that people seek familiarity in establishments like Costa.  They’re comfortable (ish).  They’re communal.  They’re predictable.  My crackpot theory is that Costa, Maccy Ds, etc. have replaced the social function of going to Church.  But maybe I’m getting too deep…

Well according to Tripadvisor, the café at 124 Market Street, Manchester, seems to at least have found a place in the hearts of my fellow Mancunians:

When I finally bamboozle someone into marrying me, I hope I can go for days out at Costa.  I don’t really.  But I do.

Another slightly more worrying review here:

I love you, Costa.  I need you.  There’s no-one else.  You are the light that guides me. You are my world.

I love you, Costa.

To be honest, the actual coffee from Costa is the best of a bad bunch.  Starbucks tastes like murky pond water to me; too acidic and weak; too American.  Caffe Nero’s ok, but they have failed to indoctrinate me in the same way that Costa have.

I’ve worked in the centre of Manchester, on and off, for nearly 10 years.  When I got my first teaching job (at an absolute shit-show of a language school called ‘A2Z’), Costa became part of my pre-teaching ritual. 

Every morning I would nervously plan my lessons, clutching the lifeblood that is Costa’s mocha cortado.  Comforted by the white noise of Piccadilly station, I would scribble down terrible ideas and curse the fact that time only flows in one direction.  Uni was over, I was wearing a shirt & tie and a pigeon on the other table was giving me proper dirties (see below), but at least I had my mocha cortado.

u think i won't batter u jus coz am a pigeon m8?

The mocha cortado (bare with me) is an espresso cut with a little bit of milk.  It’s small and strong, like Arya Stark, or Dora the Explorer.  I always order it because - if you have never visited a coffee shop in the UK - the amount of coffee they give you in a regular latte or cappuccino is INSANE.  It’s not as bad as the US-chains like Starbucks but, even in my beloved Costa, they basically dole out their lattes in huge Dwarven barrels.

You think you can drink a flat white with one hand? Like Audrey Hepburn?  Dream on mate, this one’s a two-hander. 

With the cortado, however, your other hand is free to waft around as you please. You can pick your nose.  You can attempt to make a swan with your napkin.  You can send your ex snapchats of your poorly-constructed swan, in the vain hope of winning them back.  But it’s too late.  They don’t respond. You need to move on mate.

--

THE REVIEW:

So the mocha cortado was exactly what I ordered when I finally entered Costa Coffee on Market Street. 

It was pissing it down outside.  The smiley guy playing the kora - a beautiful, melodious West African musical instrument - had fled for shelter.  The Piccadilly Rats had slid into the Spoons for a few pints of stout.  I was relieved to find that, at half-two in the afternoon, Costa was my proverbial oyster.  I could finally sit down and write my first-ever coffee review. Everyone else was at work.  Amateurs.

I hopped in the queue and, as we slowly filtered forward, my train of thought sunk to surface-level Richard Madeley-style observations.  “Christ, can’t believe a custard cream is £1.75.  Brexit Britain.  £3.95 for a panini, jesus. Didn’t used to be like this”, etc. These thoughts continued until I suddenly found myself at the front of the queue.

“Hiya, can I have a mocha cortado please?”

“Of course, is that to stay in or to go?”,

The reward centres in my brain lit up.  It was time.

“To stay in, please”,

“Ok, that’ll be £1.95”,

“Ta”.

It was so easy.  Just one minute later – a blink of the eye in cosmological terms – I was holding a piping hot mocha cortado in my hands, looking for a place to sit. 

My eyes scanned the room.  I saw a worn-out mum with a toddler; a loud group of students; a petit businessman, who seemed to be overcompensating for his small stature by talking loudly, like a foghorn.

I decided to slip into one of the seats at the window.  Just next to the entrance, to the right of the businessman.  Window seats are one of life's obvious delights.  Shielded from nature, the world outside becomes a theatre, just for you.

I raised my cortado slightly to salute the legendary homeless guy near the entrance, and finally enjoyed a sip of my coffee.  

It tasted like midnight silk.  I felt the warmth return to my body.  It felt like someone had opened an oven door.  On my notepad, I jotted down:

‘Tastes like midnight silk.’

‘Oven door analogy.’

I smiled to myself.  You are a good writer, Ross. You are strong. You will be a millionaire soon enough, and just think about how many cortados you can buy then. 

I turned to my fellow patrons, thinking I should include them in my review.  That's what reviewers do, isn't it?  One student was drinking a frappuccino.  'On a day like today? Amateur', I thought to myself, smugly.  I was taking the review business seriously.  I took another gulp of coffee and glanced around.

On the comfy seats to my left, the little businessman was pretending to enjoy an espresso.  In front of him, he had a black laptop, an empty espresso mug and papers strewn across the table. But something wasn’t right.  

You know that jolt of fear when someone appears at your window?  That wave of terror?  I felt that.

‘His face… what’s wrong with his face??'

I stood up and looked around.  The entire café had stopped.  As in, the music had stopped.  The lighting had changed.  Everyone – the baristas, the students, the toddlers, the little businessman – had stopped what they were doing, and had turned their heads to face me.

I was frozen too, but only from the wave of terror. 

Instinctively, I turned to the door, but it had been replaced by a glowing, phosphorescent portal…

This wasn’t right at all…

I quickly looked around me.  Reptiles. Everyone in Costa was a reptile. And they were all staring at me with their primordial, amber eyes .  I dropped my notepad and tried to run, but there was nowhere to go and my legs were shaking.

The ambient light in the café seemed to be fading in and out.  The wave of terror that had gripped me was cresting. I really had to escape.

The glowing portal seemed to be the only way out.  The reptiles were pointing at me now – their forked tongues flittering.  At this point, I went totally west and panicked. I needed to get out of there, at any cost. Holding my breath, I leapt through the weird portal. 

--

Time no longer seemed to exist.  I blinked once and years seemed to dart by.  The darkness seemed to be pressing against me, like obsidian gravity.  Nothing made any sense.  I thought I was writing a coffee review?  Why was this happening to me?  Was I dreaming?  Was I dead?

I drew a breath.  Well, I thought, at least I could breathe; shallow breaths at first, until the wave of terror passed.  Today had started so mundanely... There seemed to be a slit of light in the distance.

I tried to move.  I couldn’t tell which way was ‘up’, but, writhing, slithering and sliding against the tight void of space around me, I finally felt the floor beneath me.  Exhausted from the effort, I started to crawl towards the light. 

Salvation.  Redemption.  I don’t know what I expected to find at the source of the light, but I knew I had to find my way there.

The world was spinning.  It was so bright now – I looked up from the floor and made out a giant ‘X’; two psychedelic snakes, sliding across one another.  I later found out they were escalators.

Wriggling exhaustedly across the floor, I noticed I was being watched. A person stood, dressed in black, looking down at me.

“Am I in heaven?” I asked.

“Nah mate, you’re in Primark”, the shop assistant responded.  I passed out.

I woke up on Market Street, next to the homeless guy playing guitar.  He generously gave me a drink of water and, after about ten minutes getting my head together, I thanked him and trudged weakly back to Costa.  

The café was normal again.  No more reptiles. I picked my notepad off the floor and walked over to the counter.

The barista who’d made my cortado smiled at me, like an old friend, and said “So, did you enjoy our new blend?”.