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Exactly. In the 1980s people in America mostly got coffee from machines, in their home or office. Few humans were employed making coffee ("barista" was not re
by muzz 7y ago
Exactly. In the 1980s people in America mostly got coffee from machines, in their home or office. Few humans were employed making coffee ("barista" was not really a job title in the 1980s and if you told people it would be in the future, they would probably think you were crazy).
- perl4ever 7y agoCoffeehouses have been a thing for over 500 years now, so you must be pretty old.
- cylinder 7y agoor just American.
- perl4ever 7y ago"Philadelphia’s first coffeehouse opened in 1703, and by mid-century half a dozen operated within the city limits" https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/coffeehouses/ https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/coffeehouses/
- muzz 7y agoPedantic. In the 1980s there weren't many in America, now there are Starbucks'es and others throughout.
- perl4ever 7y agoThey were a thing in the 50s, 60s, 70s. Maybe more of an urban or hippie thing. I know the term "coffeehouse" was a cultural touchstone in the US because it was used in titles of books published before the 80s. Sorry I don't remember specifically, but this "nothing existed until Starbucks" is ridiculous. Starbucks came out of somewhere. Coffeehouses came from Europe to the US, before and after the American revolution.
- thaumaturgy 7y agoI'm tempted to just call out the absurdity of arguing this point, but instead I'll just air-drop a factoid: if you Google "https://www.statista.com/statistics/196590/total-number-of-snack-and-coffee-shops-in-the-us-since-2002/" https://www.statista.com/statistics/196590/total-number-of-s..., you'll find a graph showing approximately 1,650 specialty coffee shops in the US in 1991, and 31,490 in 2015. I'd link directly to it but the site forces you to pay to see the graph unless you clicked on it from a Google search results page, which is bad and evil. I can't find a better source.
- perl4ever 7y agoStarbucks has something like 15,000 locations in the US, half your latter figure. They could have a million stores and it still wouldn't mean they invented coffee.
- Spooky23 7y agoThey were pretty rare. Even in NYC, a coffee shop was mostly a Greek diner. While it may reveal my Irish working class roots, I never saw espresso made or consumed outside of an ethnic Italian restaurant in Arthur Ave until I was like 17. Last week, I had a mediocre latte from a Starbucks at an I95 truck stop adjacent to a cotton field in North Carolina.
- cptaj 7y agoPedantic. The world is not America. Actually, the U.S. not America either.
- mymythisisthis 7y agoI know what you mean, not sure why others are brining in spurious arguments. Coffee shops in the 1980s were donut shops, mostly with truckers sitting around.
- skybrian 7y agoIt seems like this is a matter of fashion and it could easily swing the other way? Why couldn't a machine make excellent coffee?
- muzz 7y agoThey can. People pay up for the experience.
- prawn 7y agoI think the key to this is to hide the robots from public view. Crank out pizzas, but not with the machine in human view. Have someone visibly handing them out. Let buyers assume the pizzas are made by artisans out the back.
- pimeys 7y agoOf course it can. One of the best machines for making coffee is the Technivorm Moccamaster (the thermo pot version). It's been in the market for decades, lasts for decades, it's easy to clean and together with a good grinder and fresh good beans, it produces a perfect mug of coffee every morning.
- crtlaltdel 7y agodoes this follow the trend for (or perhaps presage) an increasing emphasis on “user experience”?
- fyfy18 7y agoWell it's gone full circle now, as Starbucks (and a lot of other chains) use machines to make the espresso part of the drink at the touch of a button. The barrister is still responsible for steaming milk, but I only assume that is because the sounds and smells of that are what make the coffee shop atmosphere.
- cpuguy83 7y agoThere's a fair amount of skill involved in pulling a good espresso shot.
- valarauko 7y agoFair enough, though a well adjusted Super-Automatic Espresso machine can reliably and reproducibly get you 90% of the way there hundreds of times a day. The majority of customers wouldn't be able to distinguish that last 10% anyway. Have a barista on hand to adjust the Super-Automatic daily, to account for changing bean freshness, and you're pretty much good to go.
- cpuguy83 7y agoWhat about variance in tastes of customers or even variance in bean itself (beyond age).
- valarauko 7y agoHow can a barista accomodate the variance in taste of a customer when pulling an espresso shot? The barista can dial in the pressure profiling, how long to pull the shot, and the grind size. For a given batch of beans, based on the type, level of roast, and age, there likely exists a sweet spot for those parameters that most baristas would agree upon. My understanding is that this is what baristas do anyway - adjust the machine for the beans available today, and then just crank them out all day long. A super automatic (or future versions) that's dialed in daily could achieve pretty much the same thing. AFAIK, the barista will try to pull the best espresso out of the beans that they have. I'm not sure variance in customer tastes can be accomadated at this level, beyond a ristretto or an americano.