Steps to Snobbery
It has come to my attention that some of you haven’t bought our coffee because, well, you just don’t feel "good enough." You understand that our coffee is high-end and you just aren’t sure if your palate is high-end. You know you should be able to justify the move from your common coffee to a more elite coffee but how would you talk about the move among your friends and family.
Hesitate no longer! Below you will find the steps to finding your inner coffee snob.
Step 1: Shun Mass Consumerism
Whether you are a clothes snob, a shoe snob, or a foodie, it is fundamental that you shun the purchase of mass-produced goods and the methods in which they are produced. How can you look down your nose at others if they can easily attain what you have? To be an effective snob you must have gone through difficulty to acquire your goods. Here are some tips:
• Don’t buy your ground coffee or whole beans at Wal-Mart. How can you even begin to take snobbery seriously if you do?• Don’t buy coffee drinks from anyone that has an advertising budget. Chances are that if you know about the coffee establishment in question, your friends do too, and there is no chance of being an elitist in this scenario.• Never fuel up on coffee where you fuel up your car!
Step 2: Secure Equipment
Brewing coffee in an automatic drip maker or a K-cup brewer are so passé. Get rid of those things and consider these brewing methods:
• French Press – It’s French! Enough said.• Air Press – The pinnacle of coffee drinking is a perfectly clean cup after consumption and an air press can help you get there.• Cold Brewer – No, not for those heretical iced coffee Slurpee’s. We’re talking about cold water coffee untainted by flavor killing hot water.• Pour Over – Yes, it’s messy and inconvenient but the vessel screams “you’re not me”.• Vacuum Brewer – Combining science and coffee – you’ll be the smartest person in the room or at least look like it and that’s all that really matters.
The sky is the limit so run wild.
Step 3: Speak the Taste Experience
In order to settle the fact among your cohorts that you are a true coffee snob you must be able to communicate what is going on with your palate when you drink different coffees. Here are some examples to use:
• “This coffee seems Quakery which leads me to believe it was not fully ripened when picked”.• “I taste the distinct presence of cardboard. These beans must have come late in the harvest and were weary on the plant”.• “It seems heavy in my mouth”. I have no idea what that means but other snobs shake their head in agreement when it's used so you should as well (that is you should use the line and shake your head in agreement if someone else does).
Step 4: Seek to be Unique
The final step in coffee snobbery is to be unique. I’ve listed some suggestions below but ultimately it’s up to you to come up with something that is, truly, only you.
• Consider a “Drinking Jacket” that you only wear when you drink coffee.• Insist that when you are served coffee that it be accompanied by a glass of water with a half twist of lemon so that you can cleanse your palate before drinking the coffee.• Carry a dial thermometer and make sure that the water never exceeds 190 degrees when your coffee is made, lest the heat spoil the flavor of the bean.• Develop your own family crest and have it inscribed on a stainless steel spittoon so that when you attend a coffee cupping, (the jargon for a coffee tasting,) you are spitting into something classy.
I hope this article has been of benefit to you and that you embrace your inner coffee snob today so that tomorrow you can wake up, look in the mirror, and say, “You’re good enough, you’re classy enough, and gee whiz you’re snobbish enough”.
E.