It seems we have become obsessed with all things associated with food and drink. If so inclined, we can binge on cooking programmes, hosted by a melange of interchangeable and smug TV chefs.

Magazines are chock a block with recipes involving ingredients that have done more airmiles than Prince Andrew.

Foodies flock to high end restaurants, forking out for miniscule portions cunningly described as taster menus. They are often in Franglais, roughly translated as, you’re being ripped off.

The obsession has mutated to affect wine and heaven help us, what was once the humble cup of coffee. Worst of all, we have witnessed the irresistible rise of the food/wine/coffee bore. While food and wine bores have long been with us, the coffee iteration is a relative parvenu. The urban coffee bore/hipster is easily recognised (and avoided) by the pricey brew that’s worn rather than drunk. Bottled water is no longer the essential accessory for those wishing to seem cool and busy.

Without spilling the beans, I was brought up in a household where Nescafe was the height of sophistication. BC (Before Coffee), life was simpler and all we needed was a spoon of instant and boiling (tap) water. Nowadays I can’t tell my Arabica from my Excelsa and coffee making has been elevated to a pseudo-science, the humble kettle replaced by expensive kit that wouldn’t look out of place in a laboratory.

Online I recently noticed a coffee grinder retailing at a mere £895. Undoubtedly worth every penny, as it offers an Anti-Clump and Electrostaticity System (no, me neither) that effortlessly “eliminates clumps and the electrostatic charge of ground coffee”. What’s that old saying about fools and their money?

In coffee shops, counter assistants have been rebranded as baristas. There must be a university somewhere offering degree courses in the guile, ethics, economics and knack (GEEK) of coffee brewing. Alternatively, in the post-Covid age of distance learning, it’s possible to develop the necessary knowledge and skills online.

The Art of the Barista website, for example, offers foundation courses in skills such as choosing and using a coffee tamper. Now, most of us wouldn’t welcome anyone tampering with our coffee, but this is something different altogether. It’s the all-important skill of using a specially designed tool to press down the coffee and, according to the website, it “takes some practice”. No, your thumb won’t do.

Nowadays, it’s no longer possible to walk in and just order a coffee. The elderly and confused like me are subjected to impatient interrogation. I was recently perplexed to be asked “one shot or two?” Mistakenly assuming the enquiry related to how many attempts on goal the Dons manage during a match, I sought clarification. Things went further downhill when I replied, “Yes please”, to the next question, “Milk?”. The youthful barista responded with a pitying look and a deep sigh before saying, very slowly, “Soya, oat, almond or coconut?” Clearly, he’d been absent the day the university course dealt with customer care for the elderly.

In days gone by, the cost of a coffee didn’t require extension of the mortgage. I read an “artisan” coffee shop in Mayfair charges £50 for an “Ethiopian Cup of Excellence”. I’m not sure if that includes a Biscoff biscuit, but it’s probably what all Ethiopian goat herders drink mid-morning.

For coffee snobs, sorry aficionados, Black Ivory that hails from northern Thailand is even more exotic. Apparently, it’s “influenced by elephants’ digestive systems” Eh? It can be ordered in luxury hotels, a snip at a mere $50 a throw. Apparently, Black Ivory is one of a number of “luxury” coffees that draw on the “digestive enzymes” of animals. Remember, next time someone says “This coffee tastes s**t”, they may be praising, not criticising.

Having paid through the nose for their coffee, bores are as bad as wine buffs in labouring the origins, scents, flavours and provenance of their overpriced brews. They fail to grasp most of us couldn’t care less about the altitude at which their Ethiopian or Kenyan coffee was grown and whether or not there is a hint of blueberry. One such suggested my palate wasn’t “sufficiently refined” to enjoy “proper” coffee. It was unworthy, but satisfying, to respond, that nevertheless, my brain was sufficiently refined to realise it was after all, just a cup of coffee.

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