Drink your capitalism in coffee
April 8, 2020 1:41 AM   Subscribe

“Coffee Collects and settles the Spirits, makes the erection more Vigorous, the Ejaculation more full, adds a spiritualescency to the Sperme, and renders it more firm and suitable to the Gusto of the womb, and proportionate to the ardours and expectations too, of the female Paramour.” An in-depth exploration of coffee as a weapon of capitalism and colonialism.
posted by dorothyisunderwood (24 comments total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's curious that otherwise very astute take doesn't mention Nespresso; if anything symbolizes the utter mechanical encapsulation of capitalism and colonialism into a single serve cup, it's those little aluminum pods & their fey marketing (i.e. "If Black Honey processing were the easy road to a nectarous coffee, they’d all do it. But only a few farmers dare. It’s a rare process because it calls for meticulous monitoring. Master Origin Nicaragua with ‘Black-Honey’ processed Arabica contains this coffee. It gives this Nicaraguan Arabica its smooth honeyed texture and sweet cereal notes.")
posted by chavenet at 4:17 AM on April 8, 2020 [4 favorites]


Well, this gave me pause -
But the most absurd product that the specialty coffee artists hawk also fulfills a genuine need in contemporary American society: sociability. Radical centrist Howard Schultz, the CEO that oversaw the rapid expansion of Starbucks, sees coffee shops as fulfilling the need for a “third space,” a term he borrows from sociologist Ray Oldenburg. A “third space” is a one that is neither work nor home, a public space sought as an escape from both alienation and isolation. Coffeehouses have always offered “the diversion of company” in a “nursery of temperance,” to quote the 17th c. author of Coffeehouses Vindicated, but in the unforgiving environment of today’s society, they are pillars of social reproduction in providing spaces for us to be alone together.
I'm puzzled at the use of the word "absurd" to describe this, especially since the author then goes on to describe the genuine need for such "third spaces". We do need more places to just chill and hang out and be sociable. Bars and taverns don't appeal to everyone, and American houses abandoned the more sociable front porch years ago in favor of the more exclusive back yard. If you don't want to get drunk or be in a loud bar, coffee houses fill that need. And what's "absurd" about that?

I was a bit surprised that the article didn't mention that weird "Coffee Achievers" ad campaign from the mid-80s, as I'm sure that it was also either a player in, or was influenced by, the mischegas in Central America in the 80s and how that was affecting the industry.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:09 AM on April 8, 2020 [12 favorites]


(Hit "post" too soon)

This is not to say that coffee houses should be the only such space offering a "third space", mind you. We need more publicly-accessible spaces that cater to all kinds of interests. The fact that coffee houses happened to figure that out and others haven't isn't their fault.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:11 AM on April 8, 2020 [5 favorites]


Side quest unlocked: Beer Soup
posted by condour75 at 6:23 AM on April 8, 2020 [9 favorites]


See also Brewing Justice by Daniel Jaffee (a chat with him here).
posted by lalochezia at 6:47 AM on April 8, 2020


I'm a bit confused about what this essay is trying to do. He seems to want to say that coffee isn't just like any other cash crop in a capitalist/colonialist economy but actually the most capitalist/colonialist of commodities, but he just asserts this without bothering to compare it to similar things like chocolate, sugar cane, etc. And anyway a competition for most capitalist/colonialist of the capitalist/colonialist products seems like not that interesting a thing to argue about, even if he had actually made an argument.

Then he tosses in a lot of other ideas--coffee as tool for enforcing gender norms, coffee as part of a system of using drugs to create compliant capitalist subjects, coffeehouses as specifically bourgeois third spaces, etc.--any one of which could be a whole essay, but he doesn't develop these ideas so much as gesture vaguely in their direction. Also it's not clear how all of these things are connected except that coffee exists within a capitalist/colonialist system, but that's true of damn near everything. It's why there's no ethical consumption under capitalism.

Anyway, I wish he would have picked a thing to focus on instead of just throwing a bunch of coffee-related facts at the wall to see what sticks. Also it's possible I'm just grumpy because I haven't had enough coffee yet this morning.
posted by Hypocrite_Lecteur at 7:08 AM on April 8, 2020 [14 favorites]


The implication is that this is not a true public third space like a village square or community hall but a private profit-driven space that can and does deny access based on cost. Public libraries for example are real third spaces but they’re underfunded so they can’t deliver the ubiquitous social access that is in demand.

I assume they skipped Nespresso because then the entire article could just be a picture of Nespresso capsules with a gif of Picard slapping his forehead.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 7:09 AM on April 8, 2020 [12 favorites]


The implication is that this is not a true public third space like a village square or community hall but a private profit-driven space that can and does deny access based on cost. Public libraries for example are real third spaces but they’re underfunded so they can’t deliver the ubiquitous social access that is in demand.

Ah, the cost as a barrier is something I hadn't considered.

....But still, though, I don't think that coffee shops are billing themselves as a replacement for spaces like parks or bars or libraries, only as an option for people who may not like those spaces, and I don't think that presenting one's self as an option is necessarily an absurd thing. I'd like to see multiple options, catering to a range of different tastes and incomes.

I'll admit, though, that I live in a city where if you feel a given coffee shop is too pricey or snooty or exclusive-feeling to you, you can simply walk over to the next block where there will probably be another place that's more to your liking. And you've pointed out that for those where Starbucks is the only game in town, that's not necessarily a good thing. (Although I grew up in a place where Dunkin Donuts was also the only game in town, and apparently was the weekly hangout spot for a bunch of local farmers who'd sit around and discuss leftist political theory.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:24 AM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


As a word, spiritualescency is right up there with Wessonality. Where "up there" is I leave to the reader's imagination.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:24 AM on April 8, 2020 [7 favorites]


An interesting fact that I learned from this article: Lloyd’s Coffeehouse lead directly to insurance giant Lloyd's of London.

Which I guess makes sense--places where people meet will lead to people doing business together.

It'd just be like if in 200 years we're all talking about the Bank of Starbucks
posted by JDHarper at 8:47 AM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Maybe that's why CapitalOne put cafes in their banks.
posted by briank at 8:56 AM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


"In Our Time" did a good episode on coffee. Apparently, people have been calling coffee drinkers effete elites since the dawn of coffee houses. Not like those strong, hardy beer drinkers in pubs.

Pubs are probably the original "third space," and I think we can all agree that coffee is significantly better for us than doing all our socializing over alcohol.
posted by BungaDunga at 9:03 AM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Café Le Procope, Paris.
"...hosting revolutionaries and intellectuals such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin"

Caffè Florian, Venice..."...famous patrons as Lord Byron, Proust, and Dickens. Alongside Cafe le Procope, it is the oldest continuously-operated coffee house in the world."

Café Central, Vienna."...this cafe served as an incubator for prominent intellectuals including Freud, Lenin, and Trotsky"

I see a pattern of historical appropriation.
posted by clavdivs at 9:16 AM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


One of the theories of why Europe erupted with revolution in the late 18th century is the existence of coffee houses. It was a gathering place. They always had newspapers, etc for people to read. And unlike booze, coffee makes you alert. These three things fostered the dialogues that spawned the revolution. But the key here are the dialogues. Most people now sit alone in coffee houses staring at their phone or laptop wearing headphones. Back in 90’s I wrote a piece for a local San Francisco magazine called Cups - A Journal of Cafe Culture about the introduction of internet access via computers placed in the cafe. My piece started out with what I wrote right above. Cafes were for dialogue. Face to face dialogue by the way. I lamented that these computers were going to lessen the chance of meeting people and talking with them. I like to think that I was right.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:17 AM on April 8, 2020 [14 favorites]


Not to downplay the importance of coffeehouses, but we shouldn’t imagine that pubs weren’t also places where revolution fomented. Lots of trade union organizing started in pubs, for example.
posted by nickmark at 9:27 AM on April 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


So what, if anything, does the author propose we do about this state of affairs?
posted by drivingmenuts at 9:30 AM on April 8, 2020


Probably nothing since the Outline was just shuttered and everyone was fired.

It all rather leads to the question of what is to be done, you know?
posted by The Whelk at 9:33 AM on April 8, 2020 [10 favorites]


I didn't know The Outline had been shut down... here's an article about that in case anyone else is curious too.
posted by oulipian at 10:04 AM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


another vote for pubs *samadams*.

"According to popular accounts, the café’s owner François Procope once required young Bonaparte to leave his hat for security while he sought money to pay his coffee score".
posted by clavdivs at 10:48 AM on April 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


OK, I'm not going to suggest that the site went out of business because of this, but the animated squiggly line interstitial animation makes me a little motion sick and EVERY time I read an article from them I had to steel myself for it.
posted by Dmenet at 1:35 PM on April 8, 2020 [4 favorites]


Maybe that's why CapitalOne put cafes in their banks.

I recently walked past one of these in Harvard Square, and stopped in my tracks and had to just stare at the establishment's front. Where did the bank end and the cafe begin? I should've gone inside to see, but was just too weirded out at the time.

Banks as third spaces just... doesn't resonate with me.
posted by Jubal Kessler at 2:21 PM on April 8, 2020


My favorite coffeeshops are the ones without power outlets everywhere and with the majority of seating being at large tables or along the bar. They seem much more sociable places.
posted by thedward at 7:04 PM on April 8, 2020


So what, if anything, does the author propose we do about this state of affairs?

Well obviously, ban coffee shops as a first step. The social aspect can be replaced with struggle groups for self and group criticism . Then in the second part, we can ban coffee entirely, send coffee drinkers off to work on collective farms, and all that. The author must have run out of article space and cut out this common sense solution.
posted by happyroach at 9:52 AM on April 9, 2020 [3 favorites]


I don’t quite get the hate on Nespresso when Keurig exists. Yes it’s a pod-based coffee system but at least it’s not spewing billions of plastic pods into the world for no reason. (And given the amount of time I have spent with the Nespresso machine my coworker donated to the office, I have to say - the coffee quality from those aluminum pods is far higher than what normally shows up in a Keurig, most of which tend to taste like they went stale a year ago). Yes, Nespresso has breathtaking gushing over the incredible quality and etc. etc. in their ad materials. But that is what ad materials are SUPPOSED to do. I can’t imagine trying to use a manual espresso machine like the one I owned years ago in my office - it was noisy, finicky, and extremely messy to clean up after making a cup (we DO NOT have a sink in our office, except in the bathroom - and I am not going to rinse out or wash any cooking/eating supplies in a communal bathroom sink, thankyouverymuch). If not for the Nespresso I’d be trudging downstairs to the cafeteria to buy shitty burnt Starbucks at inflated prices like the other poor saps in our facility. Instead I get Peet’s espresso in their aluminum Nespresso-compatible capsules. In a reusable espresso cup, instead of a throwaway paper cup with a plastic lid. Haters be damned.

(God I despise the coffee stand at work, jerks there refuse to allow any use of a reusable coffee cup, insisting that for “health reasons” they need to use their f@#$!king paper cups “and then you can pour it into your own mug if you want” YES BECAUSE THAT SOLVES THE NEEDLESS WASTE PROBLEM YOU UTTER TOOLS)

(AND YES I understand the irony of complaining about waste in a comment lauding a pod-based coffee system but again ALUMINUM RECYCLES but plastic coffee pods and lids do not and the cups they use are not even compostable. Even if you insist Nespresso doesn’t actually recycle the pods, well, aluminum doesn’t break down into microparticles that choke fish and destroy our waterways, so there)

(Christ I need more coffee)
posted by caution live frogs at 5:40 AM on April 10, 2020 [1 favorite]


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