I'LL HAVE A FLAT WHITE GUATEMALAN LAS NUBIS WITH A ROSETTE PLEASE...

this afternoon i went to Tribe for a flat white Guatemalan Las Nubis with a rosette because i needed one. i placed my order with the guy behind the counter in simple english, no big words, no ambiguity.

me: one flat white Guatemalan Las Nubis with a rosette please.

him: what?

me: i said, i'll have one flat white Guatamalan Las Nubis with a rosette please.

him: excuse me? you want what?

me (beginning to get irritated): a flat white Guatemalan Las Nubis with a rosette. is that too difficult for you to understand?

him: (pause) what are you saying?

me: i said a FLAT. WHITE. GUATE. MALAN. LAS. NUBIS. with a ROSETTE. PULEEEZE. sheesh (under my breath).

him: (pause) what are you saying?

me: (eye roll) a flat white Guatemalan Las Nubis with a rosette.

him: (pause) what are you saying?

me: i said a FLATWHITEGUATEMALANLASNUBISWITHAROSETTE!

him: (pause) what are you saying?

me: ah! never mind, i'll go back to Origin. THEY'LL give me one. tsk, tsk, (shaking my head) pedestrian little coffee shops.

ok this never happened, i just made it up now.

but this did:

last week i was relaying my quest for coffee at TRIBE to one of the trainers at gym while she was waiting for her girlfriend to come and fetch her. she listened to my rantings about how unnecessarily complex the coffee shop experience had become and why did we have to learn a whole new language just to get a hit of caffeine? i told her about how snobbish and pretentious such a simple thing had become and how it always took the bored new-moneyed-up look-at-me types to suck the joy out of everything by claiming mainstream stuff as their own and in-so-doing putting them out of reach for normal people.

while i was still speaking her girlfriend arrived.

"hi", she said with a firm handshake, "my names Lindy, but everybody calls me Beans."

"Beans?" i replied, "yeah you look like you've got a bounce in your step."

"no no, that's not the reason", now put your hands over your eyes and peep through your fingers.
"i'm a master coffee brewer/barister (or something like that, i was too busy trying to gather all the words i'd just spoken and shove them back in my mouth to remember exactle what she called herself)".

to cover my ass i found myself delivering a landslide of coffee related questions at her that would hopefully bury everything i'd said to her girlfriend just before, and then, mistaking me for giving a shit, she invited me on a personalised grand tour around Origin, the coffee shop where she worked at the end of the week.

friday arrived and, feeling like i could do with a little pick-me-up anyway, i went.

ok, don't stress, i'm not going to take you through a literal recount or my tour right now however i do HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you go. but let me just say a few things that impressed me just to give you a feel for what goes on there:

there are more flavours of coffee than there are colours in a prism.

i tasted four and drank one.

an esspresso is a thick syrupy goo until it settles after behaving like a speeded up coffee-coloured lava lamp for a few seconds.

i downed a double followed by a small glass of water.

a cappacino is made with a single shot of esspresso (about 1cm deep in a cup) and steamed milk, which Lindy poured in such a way that she had created coffee art in the foam when she'd finished. she made a heart, a leaf and a rosette in quick succession before my very eyes!

i drank all three.

the tour of the coffee processing plant was very educational. she gathered that i like my coffee sweet (she must've noticed the landfill of candarel wrappers i'd left behind downstairs) and suggested i try the Guatemalan Las Nubis and i taste it at least once neat, on its own, and if i needed to add seetener after that i could. we went back downstairs. she created one from bean to brew right there in front of me. she made a rosette with the milk. she slid it over to me.

i drank it.

this was singly one of the most amazing taste sensations i have ever had (and the closest thing to street drugs i have ever experienced).

"one more one more i MUST HAVE ONE MORE!" i basically ordered her. she shook her head with a smirk on her face and, abracadabra, it appeared!

i practically inhaled it.

i was definitely high. i knew this because i went straight across the road to BBDO to visit my friend who'd just pulled a cocaine fueled all-nighter. he looked like he was standing still in time compared to me!

so this was the paradigm-shift the Universe had created for me. the one that took me above the pedestrian old Americano, the one that has put me above those that ask for a three-quarter flat white and think it makes them sound clever, the paradigm-shift that's taken me even higher than the coke-heads who to me are now an anachronism, a collection of people who've gotten stuck in the past and are still taking last seasons circa 1990's drugs.

i'm not a snob. i'm flying in a league of my own now. i'm not sandy green - art director anymore. nor am i sandy green - gym junkie. i will never again be known as sandy green - designer clothing addict. or (banish the thought) sandy green - inter-galactic substance abusing party queen.

from now on i will be known as sandy green - caffeine connoisseur. oKAY?!

now, wherecanigetaflatwhiteguatamalanlasnubiswitharosetteinitGODDAMMITwheeeere??!!