When Jamilia Rizvi went into a coffee shop in Melbourne, Australia, she was expecting a cup of coffee complete with lovely steaming aroma and all in one cup.
Instead, to her dismay, she was handed a beaker of milk, half a beaker of water, and a third of a beaker of coffee. Oh, and a spoon. This is called deconstruction and involves isolating the ingredients in a food or beverage so they can be put together a different way. It’s a feature of the show Top Chef. Hoity-toity!
But Jamilia, a busy working writer, took exception to this science experiment and retorted, “I prefer to drink my coffee out of crockery and not beakers.” She said she waited 20 minutes for an actual cup of coffee and finally realized she wasn’t getting one. “Hipsterism has gone too far when your coffee comes deconstructed,” she declared. “I’ll just get a chopping board with a bunch of actual coffee beans.”
To sum up her reaction to the whole situation: “No no no no no.” Come on, Jamilia, say what you really think.
This caused a controversy to erupt on Facebook with some people taking Jamilia’s side and others defending hipsters. One Jamilia supporter commented it was a good thing she didn’t order wine; they would probably have brought her a bucket of grapes. Another complained you have to have a double degree and 4000 other qualifications just to order coffee. And one wrote about his experience being bundled into a plane and flown to Ethiopia to harvest his own coffee beans. I kind of think that one was made up.
But the hipsters were not to be silenced. One pointed out it’s not a bad thing to make your coffee the way you like it, and another said that the menu would have read “deconstructed.” A commenter thought Jamilia should be more interested in quality. It was also suggested that she go to a different cafe and “get a grip, you turkey.”
So the debate goes on. As for Jamilia, she’ll probably be looking for a coffee shop with more compliance and less science.
