10. Coffee: A Love Story
Like specific music, coffee shops define and transport me back to different periods in my life.
I didn't truly start drinking coffee until I met my boyfriend, now husband, in 2015, but I have always felt a profound sense of peace when inside a coffee shop. Predictably, it all began at Starbucks.
In middle school, I did not feel comfortable in Starbucks but I wanted so badly to hold a Starbucks cup. I would order their hot chocolate even though it tasted like trash and I would walk around all day with that branded cup, long after I had gulped down that nasty excuse for hot chocolate.
In high school, I had evolved. I now ordered a "lite" caramel frappuccino (lite signifying that I had made the healthy choice of abstaining from adding whipped cream to what essentially amounted to a milkshake disguised as coffee) and would gab with my friends for hours. Here we shared our most intimate stories about ourselves.
In a cruel turn of events, the dreaded Peet's was the only coffee option on my college campus. I felt betrayed. I now had to walk 20 minutes if I wanted to enjoy a frappuccino and I could not use my meal points! Didn't the powers that be know that a Peet's frappe was garbage? I logged a lot of miles trudging up and down Bancroft Avenue in order to reach the promised land, only to fail to find a place to sit. Berkeley was a very crowded place. Gone were the days of commandeering a two-top for 8 hours while gossiping with my friends. I was alone and without a home to drink caffeinated sugar water.
I soon discovered the unofficial coffee shop of my college campus: Cafe Strada. Strada has a lovely indoor/outdoor vibe complete with string lights. It is where all GSI's (Graduate Student Instructors - because it would be too simple to call them TA's like everyone else) would meet you if you had a question outside of office hours. I never felt comfortable at Strada. First of all, I'm fairly certain that it was cash only when I was there (not sure if this is still true), which I detest. Second, I had a panic attack when I realized they did not serve any frappuccino/frappe-type drinks.
In high school, I had once gone to a (non-chain!) coffee shop and ordered a caramel macchiato (my hot drink equivalent of a caramel frappuccino) and was horrified when they did not bring out the dessert-like beverage that I grew accustomed to drinking. What was this tiny bitter beverage? And why did it taste so...BAD? The barista coolly informed me that what Starbucks called a macchiato was indeed NOT a real macchiato. How on earth could Starbucks just openly lie to me? This was the beginning of the end for me and Starbucks.
I wanted to love Strada for the ambiance but I never felt entirely at home there. I tried Cafe Milano next. However, my coffee-drinking impostor syndrome continued and despite it being another coffee shop with a fantastic layout, it was not my home.
I tried The Musical Offering Cafe, Elmwood Cafe (RIP) - Want to know something that makes me really sad? When places that I used to love close down. I know I am not alone in this but it feels personal every time I look up a place and see the words: "Permanently closed" is the universe erasing my memories by deleting that place from existence. It is being told you can never go back and experience those moments in your life ever again. All you have left are your memories. It's a small death.
I graduated from college a semester early without really planning to, so I got a job in Berkeley and continued living with my friends while they finished up senior year. I was very sad and spent all of my lunches at Artís Coffee. It was super pretentious and uninviting but my only other option was Peet’s. I didn't know how to feed myself so I would try to just drink coffee for lunch like a true psychopath. I was trying to starve myself because I had yet to lose the 20 pounds that I had gained studying abroad the year before (where I subsisted exclusively on bread and wine).
After college, I moved to Portland, OR without knowing a single person and built a life for myself in the 3+ years that I lived there. My first place in Portland was around the corner from Bipartisan Cafe. After 10 months in the corporate world, I quit my first job without having another job lined up. Each morning I would head to this cafe to work on my resume while eating bagels with cream cheese (this did not help with my post-study abroad diet). Afterward, I would walk up Mount Tabor and feel less alone in the world.
My time at Sound Grounds Coffee (RIP) was as close as I ever came to replicating my high school Starbucks experience. Every Saturday before an AA meeting, I would meet up with my girlfriends and catch up. I no longer keep in touch with a single one of them and it makes me sad. I miss these simple times. Although it didn't feel "simple" at the time. The years I spent in AA, from age 22 to 24, comprised one of the most painful periods of my life. I think after the AA meeting moved we tried to move our coffee dates to Broken Robot Coffee, but it wasn't the same.
Kornblatt's Delicatessen (RIP), was not a coffee shop per se, but it deserves an honorable mention as it is where my husband and I fell in love. Here we spent many a weekend morning consuming corned beef hash and bagel sandwiches while downing a constant stream of drip coffee from our favorite waitress.
If you love coffee, then Bend is a great place. However, if you love to wake up early and enjoy coffee, you might be out of luck. Bend is a sleepy, slow-paced vacation town so most coffee shops don't open until 7 am (which I think is a crime). We recently found ourselves at the emergency vet at 5:30 a.m. due to some cheat grass in our dog's ear. We needed to kill time while she was sedated and wanted to grab some coffee. Nothing was open except for Dutch Bros and Starbucks.
Dutch Bros does not serve coffee - they serve sugar water to the masses. We stopped there on the way to an early morning hike (No Name Lake/Broken Top, 10/10 would recommend) and asked for drip coffee and were told they did not serve drip coffee! The barista offered an Americano that was poured out of a dispenser. How can one call that an Americano? I do not know. Maybe Dutch Bros is not aware of what an Americano is supposed to be or how it is supposed to be prepared: “An Americano is a type of coffee drink prepared by diluting an espresso with hot water, giving it a similar strength to, but different flavor from, traditionally brewed coffee.” The barista drenched this "Americano" in what I can only think to refer to as "scoops" of cream, which was terrifying. She also spent 10 minutes chatting with the truck in front of us about what a "boss bitch" she was. Once it was our turn, she dispensed our "Americanos" out of the airpot and asked how much we'd like to tip today. I feel personally attacked by Square readers. If you are filling a cup from a dispenser, is it my responsibility to shoulder the burden of making sure you have a livable wage? No. I believe it is Dutch Bros' (Oregon's most successful IPO of 2021) responsibility to pay you a fair wage. I will tip you when you provide deserving service or concoct a drink by doing more than pressing down on a dispenser.
We went to Dutch Bros because we met a couple on our honeymoon that raved about some coconut tea drink supposedly off their secret menu after they heard that Michael was a coconut fiend. We failed to remember said drink name when we arrived at Dutch Bros and were told most of their secret menu contained coconut. However, none of the drinks sounded remotely ingestible. Most were tropical, rainbow colored, sugar concoctions. I do not like to drink my calories. I don't want to start my day by consuming 500+ calories in a drink! I should mention that the wife of the man who recommended this coconut tea from Dutch Bros had never left the country. They were from New Mexico and their trip to French Polynesia was the first time she had been "overseas." Is it judgmental of me to bring this point up when it should have no bearing on her husband's tea preferences? Yes. But I do think there is an inverse correlation between loving Dutch Bros and traveling outside of the country.
Where was I? Ah yes, needing coffee before 7 am and turning up empty. Luckily enough time had passed and it was now 6:30 am and we noticed that a coffee spot called Still Vibrato had just opened up for the day. Still Vibrato is located on the bottom floor of a new apartment building on the westside of Bend (near Safeway). I expected them to shill someone else's coffee (like Spoken Moto shill's Megaphone Coffee). However, we were pleasantly surprised that they use proprietary beans. The atmosphere is light, airy, and inviting while Andrew Bird and Beirut play in the background. The barista was incredibly pleasant, which is something that can rarely be said about a coffee shop barista!! And the Americanos were the most delicious ones we had ever had (sorry Thump!) and we didn't want them to end. We were chuffed (no I am not British but I love this word) to have stumbled upon this little gem.
Kudos to Still Vibrato for opening up (marginally) early (but not at all for any "real" city standards) and for serving up a scrumptious Americano without any pretentiousness or alienating hipster elitism!
As much as I love coffee, I am slowly coming to the realization that our time together is running out. As a highly anxious person, who has struggled with depression and insomnia for the last 15 years, I am finally willing to admit that coffee and I do not mix. I have been trying to replace coffee for the last year or so, although this process has been particularly challenging since moving to Bend. For now, I will have to make do with inferior coffee-alternative blends. Although I can no longer imbibe in one of my most sacred rituals, I will continue to convene in coffee shops. The world is changing. I am changing. But my love of coffee shops remains.
Tags - Alcohol, Coffee, Depression, Food, Friendship, Memories, Work