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To everyone replying with their coffee preferences, you may be missing the point. This post isn’t about coffee, it’s about people and experiences in life being

To everyone replying with their coffee preferences, you may be missing the point. This post isn’t about coffee, it’s about people and experiences in life being more important than products. It’s about a product’s quality being defined not by its substance but by its reminder of things that can’t be purchased. It’s one of the most beautiful posts I’ve seen in a long time. Hope you look beyond the coffee. Edit: Hope I didn't come across as too harsh to folks replying with their favourite coffee styles. I think I find myself in a near-constant state of, "but what about the things that matter" when spending time in VC/Startup/SV/AI/crypto/etc. culture. I know more unhappy-but-wildly-successful people here than I can shake a stick at, and I think we (as a community) are hugely complicit in pushing a consumerist culture where stuff>people. I was deeply moved to see a piece surface to HN which poetically argued for the opposite value set, and I had a moment of frustration when it wasn't clear that it was coming across to people in the comments. :)

curlftpfs 4y ago
I've shared meaningful experiences with people in life over a flat white in Manhattan though (I didn't order instant coffee). Why dump on the scene, where better for a casual chat than a coffee shop? It's very specific on this point, Maxwell House is mentioned an odd number of times.
m463 4y ago
I think food in general is common ground that pulls everyone together. I've had lots of interesting discussions around the subject of coffee. Btw, I drink coffee black now, and my circuitous coffee journey led me to cold brew coffee, which is mellow and not acid/bitter. Have you tried cold brew?
eternityforest 4y ago
I think the drug fans pretty much figured it all out with set and setting. Video games make it really obvious. No matter what advances or crapifications they do to gaming, we will always say they were better in the 90s, and we will likely never get bored with the rare times everyone actually has time off to play pen and paper games. DnD and WoD have not had any major technical advances, and everyone is still excited when a new book comes out, stories and friends don't get old. Sci-fi is not about tech development. It's about how the whole rest of the world responds to the tech development. That's what makes an exciting story. The tech industry right now has almost no context, most developers really do seem more interested in making the best code they can, as an isolated standalone object, rather than making the code that fits the context as best they can, even if that means giving up on any kind of "Every part is necessary" logical structure.
abrookewood 4y ago
Very well said - it was a great read.
taffronaut 4y ago
Non-exhaustive list of places I will happily drink bad/instant coffee: - community centres where the coffee is made by volunteers and typically costs 50 pence - anywhere that I'm invited into a social group that includes drinking coffee of whatever quality - visiting friends who aren't coffee snobs - visiting a workplace to promote my own stuff - waiting to get my tyres fixed and its Maxpax but it's free
- vesinisa 4y ago
  I love hiking. Every year I pack my tent, gas stove, trail food and a small jar of instant coffee and go on a multi-day trek in complete northern wilderness with my best friend. While I do love my small-batch locally roasted coffee on a Sunday morning at home, I must concur that as an experience it just pales in comparison to the instant coffee sipped in camp on a mountain side – surrounded by bird songs of dawn, the amazing views, the smell of morning dew on grass and only the pure excitement for the coming day ahead in my mind. Anything more complicated than instant coffee would just rob that moment of what is important, which is not the nuances of the taste of the coffee itself.
  - SteadBytes 4y ago
    Couldn’t agree more. I am absolutely a “coffee snob” but nothing compares to that winter morning instant coffee by my tent on a mountainside!
MezzoDelCammin 4y ago
Kudos. Best TLDR I've seen in quite some time ;-)
GrifMD 4y ago
The core of the post is "have quality experiences". This can be applied to many things, like travel for instance. I remember my times in hostels in Australia and European mountains much more than I do any 5 star hotel because I was having a good time with friends.
- elefantastisch 4y ago
  I think you're saying the same thing as the post but in a way I worry people will take the wrong way. "TLDR, have quality experiences" is going to read as "don't spend $100 on fancy coffee, spend it on a concert" or some equivalent. In other words, just the difference between buying products and buying "experiences". But of course that isn't what the original post is about at all. So I might TLDR more like... "Bonding with people over shared experiences is more important than the experience itself." I've noticed this before with restaurants. I used to really enjoy trying lots of new restaurants, finding the best... until I realized all I ever talked about when eating out was the food. Much better to just go to Applebee's--where the food is clearly no draw--and focus on enjoying time with someone. I think what the original post is really trying to point out is the various ways we get fixated on optimizing what should really be the background (the coffee, the meal, etc.) instead of the real meaningful experience (the time with significant people).
Shorel 4y ago
Both things, the coffee and the memories, are important to me. And I don't see the post about being one, or the other. I see the post about the common point where these two meet, and reinforce each other.
- williamtrask 4y ago
  The interesting juxtaposition is that the author didn’t just drink inferior coffee in the course of meaningful life moments, the moments were so much more meaningful that the author has begun to prefer the inferior product. It’s not reinforcement per day, it’s a change in values altogether
eutropia 4y ago
I could write a post about how becoming a coffee snob in college led to True and Lasting Happiness. I’ll dispense with the well-painted scenes and evocative memories and just put it plainly, however. Once I started making a french press of single origin locally roasted coffee every day, I realized that every single day I could simply be happy. I could make decisions (at a reasonable cost, for Happiness) and enjoy the little things each day. Regardless of how the rest of my day could go, I had my coffee, and I had it my way. At the time, since it was college, I was reading widely across religions and counter-culture - trying to Figure it All Out - and this daily ritual of making my coffee struck me as a shortcut to gratitude, mindfulness, and existential affirmation. Money may not be able to buy you happiness, but it can buy good coffee - and with the right mindset these are one and the same.
- elefantastisch 4y ago
  Rambling warning. I think there is a lot of overlap in what you're saying and what the article is saying. In both cases, coffee is a means to an end. In contrast, at the beginning of the article, the coffee was the end for the author, not the means. Getting a perfect cup of coffee was the goal, not because it produced gratitude, mindfulness, and existential affirmation, but just as a goal unto itself. This is apparent in the author's realization that the time and money he was spending on coffee wasn't worth it. It was, of course, worth it for the goal of getting the best coffee money can buy, but that isn't actually a meaningful goal. Your goal is also clearly not to find the best coffee money can buy. Yours is more like experiencing a simple honest pleasure, and fine coffee helps you do that. I don't think that in any way contradicts the author's realization that for them, bonding is the goal, and cheap coffee helps them do that. I think in many ways the conclusion is the same... don't make things an end unto themselves. Optimizing a thing is a great goal in terms of being specific, measurable, attainable, and all the other things people tell us our goals should be... but if it doesn't actually mean anything, then it doesn't matter if you optimize it. Don't lose sight of what's actually meaningful because you're optimizing some clear metric. I don't know if I'm making any sense, but I'm really glad you shared this because I think it's a great alternate perspective that still echoes with the same underlying meaning.

curlftpfs 4y ago

I've shared meaningful experiences with people in life over a flat white in Manhattan though (I didn't order instant coffee). Why dump on the scene, where better for a casual chat than a coffee shop? It's very specific on this point, Maxwell House is mentioned an odd number of times.

m463 4y ago

I think food in general is common ground that pulls everyone together. I've had lots of interesting discussions around the subject of coffee. Btw, I drink coffee black now, and my circuitous coffee journey led me to cold brew coffee, which is mellow and not acid/bitter. Have you tried cold brew?

eternityforest 4y ago

I think the drug fans pretty much figured it all out with set and setting. Video games make it really obvious. No matter what advances or crapifications they do to gaming, we will always say they were better in the 90s, and we will likely never get bored with the rare times everyone actually has time off to play pen and paper games. DnD and WoD have not had any major technical advances, and everyone is still excited when a new book comes out, stories and friends don't get old. Sci-fi is not about tech development. It's about how the whole rest of the world responds to the tech development. That's what makes an exciting story. The tech industry right now has almost no context, most developers really do seem more interested in making the best code they can, as an isolated standalone object, rather than making the code that fits the context as best they can, even if that means giving up on any kind of "Every part is necessary" logical structure.

abrookewood 4y ago

Very well said - it was a great read.

taffronaut 4y ago

Non-exhaustive list of places I will happily drink bad/instant coffee: - community centres where the coffee is made by volunteers and typically costs 50 pence - anywhere that I'm invited into a social group that includes drinking coffee of whatever quality - visiting friends who aren't coffee snobs - visiting a workplace to promote my own stuff - waiting to get my tyres fixed and its Maxpax but it's free

vesinisa 4y ago
I love hiking. Every year I pack my tent, gas stove, trail food and a small jar of instant coffee and go on a multi-day trek in complete northern wilderness with my best friend. While I do love my small-batch locally roasted coffee on a Sunday morning at home, I must concur that as an experience it just pales in comparison to the instant coffee sipped in camp on a mountain side – surrounded by bird songs of dawn, the amazing views, the smell of morning dew on grass and only the pure excitement for the coming day ahead in my mind. Anything more complicated than instant coffee would just rob that moment of what is important, which is not the nuances of the taste of the coffee itself.
- SteadBytes 4y ago
  Couldn’t agree more. I am absolutely a “coffee snob” but nothing compares to that winter morning instant coffee by my tent on a mountainside!

MezzoDelCammin 4y ago

Kudos. Best TLDR I've seen in quite some time ;-)

GrifMD 4y ago

The core of the post is "have quality experiences". This can be applied to many things, like travel for instance. I remember my times in hostels in Australia and European mountains much more than I do any 5 star hotel because I was having a good time with friends.

elefantastisch 4y ago
I think you're saying the same thing as the post but in a way I worry people will take the wrong way. "TLDR, have quality experiences" is going to read as "don't spend $100 on fancy coffee, spend it on a concert" or some equivalent. In other words, just the difference between buying products and buying "experiences". But of course that isn't what the original post is about at all. So I might TLDR more like... "Bonding with people over shared experiences is more important than the experience itself." I've noticed this before with restaurants. I used to really enjoy trying lots of new restaurants, finding the best... until I realized all I ever talked about when eating out was the food. Much better to just go to Applebee's--where the food is clearly no draw--and focus on enjoying time with someone. I think what the original post is really trying to point out is the various ways we get fixated on optimizing what should really be the background (the coffee, the meal, etc.) instead of the real meaningful experience (the time with significant people).

Shorel 4y ago

Both things, the coffee and the memories, are important to me. And I don't see the post about being one, or the other. I see the post about the common point where these two meet, and reinforce each other.

williamtrask 4y ago
The interesting juxtaposition is that the author didn’t just drink inferior coffee in the course of meaningful life moments, the moments were so much more meaningful that the author has begun to prefer the inferior product. It’s not reinforcement per day, it’s a change in values altogether

eutropia 4y ago

I could write a post about how becoming a coffee snob in college led to True and Lasting Happiness. I’ll dispense with the well-painted scenes and evocative memories and just put it plainly, however. Once I started making a french press of single origin locally roasted coffee every day, I realized that every single day I could simply be happy. I could make decisions (at a reasonable cost, for Happiness) and enjoy the little things each day. Regardless of how the rest of my day could go, I had my coffee, and I had it my way. At the time, since it was college, I was reading widely across religions and counter-culture - trying to Figure it All Out - and this daily ritual of making my coffee struck me as a shortcut to gratitude, mindfulness, and existential affirmation. Money may not be able to buy you happiness, but it can buy good coffee - and with the right mindset these are one and the same.

elefantastisch 4y ago
Rambling warning. I think there is a lot of overlap in what you're saying and what the article is saying. In both cases, coffee is a means to an end. In contrast, at the beginning of the article, the coffee was the end for the author, not the means. Getting a perfect cup of coffee was the goal, not because it produced gratitude, mindfulness, and existential affirmation, but just as a goal unto itself. This is apparent in the author's realization that the time and money he was spending on coffee wasn't worth it. It was, of course, worth it for the goal of getting the best coffee money can buy, but that isn't actually a meaningful goal. Your goal is also clearly not to find the best coffee money can buy. Yours is more like experiencing a simple honest pleasure, and fine coffee helps you do that. I don't think that in any way contradicts the author's realization that for them, bonding is the goal, and cheap coffee helps them do that. I think in many ways the conclusion is the same... don't make things an end unto themselves. Optimizing a thing is a great goal in terms of being specific, measurable, attainable, and all the other things people tell us our goals should be... but if it doesn't actually mean anything, then it doesn't matter if you optimize it. Don't lose sight of what's actually meaningful because you're optimizing some clear metric. I don't know if I'm making any sense, but I'm really glad you shared this because I think it's a great alternate perspective that still echoes with the same underlying meaning.