Issue 24: Scrubs, drums, and coffee

The Standart Issue 24 has something of an aesthetic bent—but of course it does: we did after all just come out of a long-awaited summer, reminiscent of the summers of yore, when we could see friends and share memories and feel almost normal again, moments of distilled beauty tasted once more.

In this issue we look at how coffee can make you beautiful (or can it?) and how some leading hospitality businesses use aesthetics to reinforce feelings of community and physical interconnectivity. Speaking of... we interview an expert in the study of culture and representation, and specifically how we might learn to look at things with less judgement and ask questions of our own assumptions.

We compare and contrast types of roasting machine with Scott Rao, hear the story behind the start-up coffee subscription business The Coffee Vine, and make the case for moving towards a more equitable coffee industry by dropping talk of percentages and speaking real numbers.

Our ‘Meet Your Barista’ feature, where we interview someone we admire from the coffee industry, features Mikey Rinaldo of New Math Coffee in Chicago; we speak about their approach to work and art, and their love of Asian coffees.

In this issues long-form essay, writer and academic Ben Wurgaft reflects on what cafés mean to us and how we’ve missed them, and it makes for a stunning rumination that I think we can all connect with.

To round it all out, we take a walk through the world’s most visited city, Bangkok, where coffee carries histories of alleged gods and resilience under their rule.