My interactions with coffee first started from my family. At large gatherings, I’d admire my uncles, aunts, and parents who drank coffee after dessert as we played our family card game Pinochle. I was always stunned by how they could swallow coffee black without wincing, or making a face like you drank a too sour lemonade. Slowly but surely, admiring my older relatives became assimilation: being offered a sip at age 13 to having a cup of coffee poured for me before I even asked for one at age 17. Now, whenever I travel to a new space, the first thing I look up is the nearest independently owned coffee shop. I adore drinking a latte and eating a croissant pretending to be a regular at this new place. It’s become second nature to me — but how did I get from wincing at the taste of coffee to making home in every small shop I enter?
Liberman uses the definition of phenomenological studies to not take a physical taste at its first value. I want to apply the idea of phenomenology to understanding taste in an affective, abstract way. Combining the studies of Sociology 387 and French 387, I’ll explain how I grew into coffee: in tasting memories alongside blends of Duck Rabbit, Rising Star, and Brandywine coffee. I see my relationship to coffee as an example of how I’ve grown into myself, and how I continue to grow to live my values in various parts of my life.
Here’s what you need to know about coffee before reading any further: most shops – independently owned and large chains – use Arabica beans, a bean that comes from a specific coffee flowering plant. (2020) Arabica beans are grown all over the world, with hotspots in South American countries, and parts of Africa. Higher end coffee shops rely on single origin roasters – in which the beans are sourced from one country or place, and roasted separate from other blends. Large chains don’t often use single origin – as we see with Dunkin Donuts. In a sense of prestige, single origin coffee is relished as it often has a better sense of terroir. I don’t think a coffee shop should be counted out automatically based on their roast sourcing, as long as they’re up front about it. Throughout my essay, I’ll examine the influence of roasts and terroir in the context of personal growth and coffee.
Freshman year – Fuel
For college students, we don’t care too much about the taste of coffee. At the end of the day, it’s a means to an end. As Schivelbusch discusses, 17th and 18th century society agreed: “…it promised nothing less than to lengthen and intensify the time available for work.” (39) Addictively, we search high and low for the next hit of coffee: will it be from the college library shop, the small town store, or Dunkin Donuts? Does a college student even know the amount of caffeine in a double shot of espresso vs. a cup of coffee? What we crave, at least what I craved as an 18 year old first year, is the cultural connotation of coffee. I didn’t care what it tasted like, or where the beans came from; I cared that it would lengthen and intensify my time available for work – as Schivelbusch says.
Obviously this thinking is flawed. No one ought to rely on a substance to aid in performance of work. By using coffee as a mechanism to lengthen work, we evidently short circuit our bodies into losing hunger cues, increased heart rate, raised levels of anxiety, and restlessness at night. I felt these effects in real time: pounding store-bought cold brew cans at 11 at night to “help me” write an overdue paper. This relationship to coffee was short lived, due to the shut down of society in the spring of 2020. Like many others, I moved back in with my parents and college-aged brother for several months to finish my freshman year. I was left with facetime calls and scrambled texts, tiktok holes and instagram stories galore — no shreds of the fleeting reality I once took for granted. I yearned for late night study sessions with my best friends in Azzy’s: taking breaks every hour to run to Decafe to refuel on coffee and study snacks.
A shift occurred during that spring: I began to view coffee as something more than just fuel. With all the COVID restrictions, I wasn’t allowed to leave my house and certainly not able to visit coffee shops casually. My dad would hold a weekly family meeting where we’d go over the groceries. I’d always ask for a coffee product, but it never felt the same as a Slow Train vanilla latte. As I began to go stir crazy, I discovered a Dunkin Donuts drive thru 30 minutes from my house. It was perfect: 30 minute drive one way, 20 minute drive-thru endeavor, and a 30 minute return. I’d make playlists for the drive, dress in something besides sweatpants to make the occasion extra special.
Dunkin Donuts is not known for its high class taste profile or unique flavors. It’s known for its accessibility and reliability: two things I needed as the whole world around me changed. Quickly, my love for coffee turned from a necessity to fuel to an admiration of normalcy. The weekly medium iced coffee with oat milk and a french vanilla swirl reflected that. From their Our Commitment to Coffee publication, Dunkin notes their beans are 100% Arabica and sourced from various countries like Peru, Brazil, Mexico, and several South American countries. (2021) Their roasts are not single origin – which in a way speaks to their slogan of ‘America runs on Dunkin.’ I think it’s a result of such a large chain (over 9,000 stores in the US): a level of quality has to drop as the quantity of stores rises. (2023) But in this wake, Dunkin appeals to the working class, students, and anyone else who is on the move. It’s less about taste or origin, and more about the fueling and normalcy. So while I relied on Dunkin as a way to get out of the house, I also learned a thing or two about the taste and origin of a franchised coffee.
Above all else, I learned that coffee is about connecting. That spring, I learned the value of connecting with myself – and how the drive acted first as an act of self-preservation but then as an affirmation of self-care and self-love.
Sophomore year – Connection
Coming off of six months at home, I was ecstatic to be back at Oberlin, even though the campus was going to look and feel different. That fall my definition of coffee again grew: this time focusing on how it can be used as a way to connect with others. Every morning, my best friend Ish would walk to my dorm and meet me outside to go get matching black cold brews from Azzy’s. Sam and Tyler, the new baristas who worked there, would greet us each morning. You could see the wrinkles of their smiles behind their masks as they greeted us. We became quasi-regulars: as regular as you can be for a to-go only dining space. Here’s the thing: I can’t tell you what the taste profile of the cold brew was. Citrus, sure; berries, plausibly, cinnamon, depending on the day. But I can tell you what it felt like. Something to look forward to each morning. An excuse to see my friend. A way to add normalcy to a topsy-turvy semester. Those cold brews from Azzy’s served their purpose not to fuel me in caffeine, but to fuel me in social connection and livelihood.
Kenneth Liberman wrote a whole book on the ethnographic and scientific study of tasting coffee. Highly competitive coffee tasting competitions happen across the globe to test how specific one can taste each note of the brew. But what tools do we have to describe the emotional taste of coffee? How do I put into terms the way an objectively shitty cold brew makes me tear up because I got to drink it in a spray painted circle in Wilder Bowl with my best friend?
During my sophomore year, my peers and I were sent home for the spring in an attempt to de-densify the campus. I lived with my cousins, teaching them school lessons each day. I returned to my weekly practice of drive thru coffee trips, facetimes with best friends, and lots of sappy long distance coffee dates. That spring I fell in love, starting my mornings often with a facetime and iced coffee. We’d order each other Dunkin Donuts to be delivered to the door, or venmo each other for a bagel. Here, again, taste didn’t mean flavor, it meant connection.
I finished my sophomore year back at Oberlin for a summer-camp semester from May to August. Living in the apartment complex next to Slow Train Cafe, my new routine included walking through each morning to get a cold brew and a gluten free blueberry muffin. Liberman writes that expert coffee drinkers aren’t thoroughly tied to their opinions on coffee. In agreement, I’m not tied to how tasty the cold brew is, instead I’m tied to the memory it holds. And further, I wonder what function coffee serves.
The days were hot, silly, and full of anything but school. Coffee served its purpose of connection: marking many dates and study sessions with friends. That summer, coffee tasted like everything falling into place. It tasted like a bite of dark chocolate with ripe orange alongside it.
Junior year – Work
Junior year was a disheveled attempt at normalcy. I played my second collegiate season of field hockey, wrote many last minute papers, and frequented coffee shops for the social and cultural contexts. Slow Train became a home base for me, as I consistently did homework there. I remember the pride I felt the day the barista remembered my drink order and name without me saying a word. The glory of being a regular soon turned into a fiery desire to work at Slow Train.
That winter, I did just that. I was drawn to the work because of the social outlet, pay, and frankly free coffee for employees. At first, the work was just work. Taking orders, brewing coffee, sweeping floors: it didn’t take much to be technically good as a backbar at Slow Train. But as I became more invested in the space, I found the stakes of work to raise. Yes, I’ll take the extra minute to refill the coffee bean canister for the next pot to be brewed. Hey, can I take over the food station, I know you’ve been on for a while. Jessa, my boss, handpicked a cohort of employees who understood, and continue to understand, the principles of a third space – and how to contribute to that cultivation. Slow Train is definitely treated as a third space. College students are known to hunker down all day: gossiping, writing papers, reading books, with or without buying a drink from the place. We certainly have regulars. And there’s a definite sense of jest and joking between patrons, and workers.
The spring of my junior year was emotionally, socially, and academically challenging. I began to take coffee for granted. The once savored first sip of a latte turned into a guzzle in between taking orders during a rush. I’d feel myself turn into a shell of myself as I worked more and more hours and had less and less time without that shield of defense. Coffee turned into aggravation and frustration. It symbolizes annoying customers who didn’t tip and coworkers who didn’t clean as they prepared drinks. I think I grieved the way coffee was connective, in a way I lost hope for the community values it once served in my life. It was a wild way to end a year: working at a coffee shop and seeing the power of connection for others but not myself.
Senior year/Looking forward – Living your values
I returned to Oberlin for my senior year and immediately stopped at Slow Train for an iced coffee. This past fall I put my blinders on: focusing on the responsibilities I had, the expectations I wanted to exceed, and making the best latte art I could possibly do. I wouldn’t say I wasted the fall, but I would say I lost track of the affective taste of coffee, of Oberlin. I became too focused on the bitterness of espresso rather than the fullness of a drink. I focused on the negatives, and created unstable senses of community by commiserating.
In August, I remember walking with my boss Jessa and telling her about my life. She was the first person I turned my blinders off for: I was able to sit and tell her the full truth: I was overwhelmed, scared, worried, and tired. We drank our coffees and I swear in that moment I remembered why I worked in coffee. It wasn’t about the perfect latte, or fulfilling drinks immediately. Working in coffee was about creating a family, being true to yourself, and allowing yourself to fall. The working community of Slow Train does just that, thanks to our fearless leader. Jessa New, the owner, was quick to onboard me, instilling her values of community, integrity, and kindness in me and my coworkers. There are many people who live by their values, and many who value how they live. Jessa is one of those people that does both seamlessly. She is selfless in her work, clear in her expectations, and treats each customer, vendor, and employee with respect and dignity.
This year my perception of coffee has turned to a symbol of family. It has turned into a symbol of community, loving communication, and fearless courage. Jessa is one of many mentors I’ve had the pleasure of sitting and sipping coffee with this year. Whether it be sipping du cafe with my Julien Roland, the French Faculty in Residence, in Bordeaux during winter term, or drinking Starbucks blended coffee with my parents at home on a slow Sunday morning, the beauty of coffee remains the same. Coffee allowed me the space to rely on others. It became a safeguard in a way I didn’t trust other aspects of my life to do. Coffee continues to be an inspiration for the life I want to lead.
I graduate from Oberlin College in less than a month. I’ll leave town on June first – staying the week after commencement to get some final hours in at Slow Train and take my time packing up my house. I started the year by getting an iced latte – and I know I’ll finish this year out by stopping by Slow Train with a packed car. I’ll get gas from Mickey Mart before parking in the back lot, walking in and going behind the bar one last time.
I want a gentle and extraordinary life. I want to wake up early, take my dog for a walk around the block, and get a coffee at the local shop. I’ll get dressed for work and head to my school. I want to be excited to go to work every morning, and I know working at an Independent school will be. I’ll get to walk down the halls and say hello to my students and coworkers. I’ll teach lessons on Jesmyn Ward’s Sing Unburied Sing and the imperfect french tense. I’ll lead my class through the woods as we share our journal entries for that given class day. I’ll end my day by coaching field hockey or basketball and giving my athletes high-fives. I can’t wait for that lifetime. I can’t wait to sip coffee from my Oberlin College mug and be transported to a world of gratitude.
Sources
Liberman, Kenneth. 2022. Tasting Coffee: An Inquiry into Objectivity. State University of New York Press
“Arabica vs. Robusta: The Ultimate Guide to Types of Coffee.” The Roasterie, September 10, 2020. https://theroasterie.com/blogs/news/arabica-vs-robusta-the-ultimate-guide-to-types-of-coffee.
“Caffeine.” MedlinePlus. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Accessed May 5, 2023. https://medlineplus.gov/caffeine.html.
“Dunkin’ Continues Commitments to Coffee Sustainability in 2021.” Dunkin’, 2021. https://news.dunkindonuts.com/blog/dunkin-continues-commitments-to-coffee-sustainability-in-2021.
“Number of Dunkin’ Donuts Locations in the USA in 2023.” ScrapeHero, April 25, 2023. https://www.scrapehero.com/location-reports/Dunkin%20Donuts-USA/.
Special thanks to Grace An and Greggor Mattson for their teaching in E!D!S!L!
About the author:
Post is a senior at Oberlin College graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative American Studies and French. They are a two year captain of the field hockey team, Slow Train barista, and loves a good rom-com. They’re grateful for the time spent in the E!D!S!L! learning clusters and wish the best for their classmates and teachers.
