Coffee House Culture and Its Downfall

In 18th-century London, the slang phrase for withdrawal as a method of birth control was “to make a coffee-house of a woman’s privities, to go in and out and spend nothing.” (This, according to a contemporary dictionary of vulgar slang.) All these years later, freeloading is still an issue. Zeigel says he sees students come into the Golden Roast with their own food and drinks, just to use the free Internet. Shaun Parrish says there’s a reason why Java no longer has free refills—they can’t afford to. Because while he doesn’t like to think of coffee as a commodity, it is one, and it’s one with skyrocketing prices.

Sucky thing to do, and I don't understand why they'd let them stay.  I guess it must be some hippie thing to let the freeloaders hang out.  I guess we're just more courteous here.

On the other side of things, I do agree that slow drip coffee is all sorts of delicious.  I've only had it once at a place out of town, but it was well worth the wait.

I did kind of have to giggle about this too-

But the market has expanded so much that even crappy liquor stores carry random varietals and tape reviews from Wine Spectator next to the price tags. I’ve seen Grenache at convenience stores in Georgia. The Olive Garden has an Amarone on its wine list. An Amarone! And none of that would have happened without the Gallo brothers popularizing mediocre wine.



Like the way Starbucks has popularized mediocre coffee.

And if you've read my handful of coffee posts before, you know I feel much the same way about them.  Yes, I applaud their politics, but charging a dollar more per cup does not improve the flavor.