Cup O' Joe

I was was watching the news today and I caught one of their random tidbits that piqued my interest. Then I thought about it and became simply annoyed. There's a guy at some coffee shop in Chicago who makes a really good cup of coffee, I guess. He can do that fancy trick where you take the foamy milk and drag the stream to make a heart. Awe, well isn't that just so fucking CUTE? Now gimme my caffeine and piss off. This dude will be going to London in June to COMPETE in the WBC--the World Barista Championship. Seriously.

Now I am no stranger to paying $4 or more for a large, delicious, caffeine-charged beverage from Starbuck's at least once a week. Can I HONESTLY taste a difference in how the hyper, Asian dude who likes to make inane small talk versus the chubby, chipper gal with a high pitched voice makes my grande black cherry nonfat latte? No, I sure can't. It's hot, it's yummy, it's in a to-go cup. And I think Starbucks is pretty high in the echelon of coffee purveyors in the industry. I'm sure there are some great little cafes which only serve free-trade, organic, camel manure-fertilized coffee ground by Himalayan orphans doing a tribal fertility dance. But to me, in the end a cup of joe is a cup of joe.

I know there are standards in coffee. I would rather lick a turd than drink coffee from 7-11 on the way out of town after I fill my tank on the way to Michigan. Sorry, friendly Indian man, your sweet demeanor and charming personality do not make up for the fact that your coffee tastes like asshole stew. Gas station coffee is bad. But MOST places make a decent cup of coffee with minimal effort. Even freakin' McDonald's has been known to satisfy my mid-afternoon caffeine jonesing.

But to raise the skill of coffee making to an art, one which can be tested in a competition on an international level is where I take issue. What are the events? Milk foam art? Hottest cup? Fastest latte? Do they do a little shimmy and flip those espresso handles around, a la Tom Cruise in "Cocktail"? Do they stand together in their extra long aprons and do a kick line while balancing a cappuccino in each hand? I don't get it. I would love to go and see what this elite coffee competition is all about. Granted, I would have to be drunk and would probably make fun of them and get kicked out.

"A barista is a person, usually a coffee-house employee, who prepares and serves espresso-based coffee drinks". With a few hours of training I am sure I could master the art of a damn latte. What is so fucking exciting about making coffee-based drinks, other than drinking unlimited amounts of them on your shift at Caribou? Who aspires to COMPETE as a barista??? Is there extensive training to prep for this? Do they have coaches? Is there a special locker room for their aprons? Do they dump Gatorade on each other when they win, because I think a cooler of cappuccino would be a little hot? I think this whole notion is really fucking weird. I just hope if this dude from Chicago wins, and the barista Olympic coffee rings are raised, that he doesn't get disqualified for doping. I've heard those baristas sometimes use some illegal performance-enhancing Guatemalan pygmy roast to up their game. Coffee freaks.