Masha Vinograd
Where's my f***ing context?!
Is a coffee without context a coffee really worth having? I say no. As we well know, coffee is much more than a liquid pick-me-up—those days are over. Coffee can and ought to encapsulate much more. It is a mood, a ritual, a setup, a stage. Don’t hand me a cup of ‘just coffee’ and expect that to be enough. It’s not! I need a setting. A terrace. A little chaos. Something to look at while I judge people and sip slowly. That—that is the whole point!
I’ve had people drag me to some windowless underground closet and act like it’s sacred because the beans were blessed by monks or something. Sorry: no. If I’m drinking good coffee in a depressing place, it tastes like despair. I want—I need—more. So do all of us.
That’s what kills me in Paris now. The recent mushrooming of ‘good coffee’ spots with zero vibe. You either queue forever à la Disneyland for an espresso, or you’re forced to sit on an overcrowded pavement by a bin and innumerable tourists while scooters squeal past. And God forbid you wind up in a bistro and ask for a decent cup; they serve you up some brownish battery acid along with a look that says ‘go back to wherever you came from if you don’t like our throat-lacerating allongé.’
Now, the Italians, they get it, perhaps overmuch. They may still not know how to make ‘good’ coffee, but they do it with precision, ease, a certain élan. The bar always eloquent of an atmosphere you don’t want to leave, the countertop an aesthetic treat; the place is teeming with life. No fuss, just fluency.
I work at a bookshop that serves coffee—and coffee only benefits from the accompaniment of a plot. Coffee is more than just a trend; it’s more than just coffee. It’s all that holds some of us together.
And if someone tries to over yet another mushroom-derived coffee alternative, that torture juice is going straight in the Siene!
Keep reading
Become a reader—from $60/year
A membership helps us stay independent, create a whole range of stories across our different platforms, and continue to invest in creative community we work with.
Join Standart Already a reader? Log-in here.
Explore more stories
Rachel Apple is a Cup of Excellence Head Judge, photographer, and co-founder of Raise the Bar, a community and education platform for specialty coffee professionals. She loves bin diving for vinyl,...
As the sun set in Zimbabwe’s lush Honde Valley, I watched kids push car tyres up and down the street, racing each other through the village. In Africa, most often, less is more. People are used to ...
Los Angeles resists clean outlines, and its coffee culture lives somewhere between softness and grit. Built from migration, precarious work, and long-standing food traditions, it moves at uneven te...
Tinashe Nyamudoka, founder of Kumusha Wines and Kumusha Coffee, is more than a world-class sommelier; he is a symbol of how wine, culture, and competition can challenge global narratives about tast...
When exploring foreign lands, few feelings compare to the triumph of discovering something known only to locals. Realizing these euphoric moments requires a healthy pinch of boldness, however; one ...
Some coffee origins are still in the process of becoming. Malawi is one of them—a place where potential feels tangible even if not fully realized. Farmers are steadily shaping a future for their co...
Blue-sky ski days to negroni nights, Hakuba is a 24-hour town hidden in the Japanese highlands. From the staunch octogenarian locals fiercely guarding their old traditions, to the young crowd of mu...
In recent years, matcha has become one of the most popular drinks ordered and enjoyed in cafes around the world. But with its growing popularity, several issues have also emerged, ranging from a la...
As coffee grew cheaper in 18th-century Europe, it spread beyond the elite, alarming German rulers. In Prussia, Frederick the Great saw it as a threat to order, economy, and authority. His efforts t...
Valtteri Bottas is a known quantity at Standart, being as he is a past interviewee and co-owner of Finnish roastery Kahiwa. He moves quickly, and not only when he’s piloting an earthbound rocket ar...
