I was Hungry and You gave Me Something to Eat.
 -- Matthew 25:35

Monday 23 February 2004

Culture Shocks

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Hello ^fname^,


This is Nucha Aquino from Thailand/Philippines.  
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I have been trying to write about coffee drinking habits
for a long time, but just could not find the way to present
the story. Thank you Remko de Knikker, and articlecity.com, 

who comes to my rescue :-) .

Your Banner or 8-line ad here for $10. Order here.

 

The Coffee Culture in the USA

by: Remko de Knikker 

 

 

              

      

 

 

 

 

It wasn't until I moved to the US that I started drinking 
coffee regularly and became what they call in the 
Netherlands a 'koffieleut', which translates literally into 
‘coffee socialite.’ Although the average European drinks 
more coffee per year than the average American, the cultural 
importance and its effects on the average European seems to 
me smaller than that on the average American. After all, 
coffee is a cultural obsession in the United States. 

Chains with thousands of branches like Dunkin' Donuts or 
Starbucks dominate US daily street life. Especially in the 
morning (90% of coffee consumed in the US is in the 
morning), millions of white foamy cups with boldly imprinted 
pink and orange logos bob across the streets in morning rush 
hour and on the train. Coffee drive-ins are a saving grace 
for the rushing army of helmeted and tattooed construction 
workers. During lunch break, men and women in savvy business 
suits duck into coffee shops. 

Students chill out from early afternoon till late evening on 
comfy couches at coffee lounges around campus. Police 
officers clutch coffee cups while guarding road construction 
sites on the highway. In short, coffee drinkers in the 
United States can be found just about anywhere you go. 

This mass-psychotic ritual causes Americans to associate 
Europe above all with cars that oddly do not contain cup 
holders (to an American this is like selling a car without 
tires), or with the unbelievably petite cups of coffee 
European restaurants serve, so small that my father-in-law 
had to always order two cups of coffee. It is my strongest 
conviction that the easily agitated and obsessed nature of 
the ‘New Englander’ can be blamed on the monster-size cups 
of coffee they consume. Not without reason is the word 
'coffee' derived from the Arab 'qahwa' meaning ‘that which 
prevents sleep.’ Arabs have cooked coffee beans in boiling 
water since as far back as the 9th century and drank the 
stimulating extract as an alternative to the Muslims’ 
forbidden alcohol. 

These days coffee is second only to oil as the most valuable 
(legally) traded good in the world with a total trade value 
of $70 billion. Interestingly, only $6 billion reaches 
coffee producing countries. The remaining $64 billion is 
generated as surplus value in the consumption countries. 
Small farmers grow 70% of world coffee production. They 
mainly grow two kinds of coffee beans: Arabica and Robusta. 
About 20 million people in the world are directly dependent 
on coffee production for their subsistence. 

Table 1: production in 2002/3 

country % 70% Arabica 

30% Robusta 

Brasil 42.03% Arab/Rob 

Colombia 8.88% Arabica 

Vietnam 8.35% Robusta 

Indonesia 4.89% Rob/Arab 

India 3.74% Arab/Rob 

Mexico 3.54% Arabica 

Guatemala 3.1% Arab/Rob 

Uganda 2.53% Rob/Arab 

Ethiopia 2.44% Arabica 

Peru 2.24% Arabica 

Table 2: consumption in 2001/2world consumption % kg per 
capita (2001) 

USA 30.82% Finland 11.01 

Germany 15.07% Sweden 8.55 

Japan 11.47% Denmark 9.71 

France 8.89% Norway 9.46 

Italy 8.59% Austria 7.79 

Spain 4.90% Germany 6.90 

Great-Brittain 3.63% Switzerland 6.80 

the Netherlands 2.69% the Netherlands 6.48 

Although the consumption of coffee per capita in the world 
is decreasing (in the US alone it decreased from 0.711 liter 
in 1960 to 0.237 liter presently), world consumption is 
still increasing due to the population explosion. 
Considering that coffee consists of either 1% (Arabica), 2% 
(Robusta) or 4.5%-5.1% (instant coffee) caffeine, the 
average American consumes at least 200 to 300mg (the 
recommended maximum daily amount) of caffeine a day through 
the consumption of coffee alone. 

The place I frequent to down a cup of coffee is the 
Starbucks in Stamford, Connecticut. The entrance can be 
found on the corner of Broad Street and Summer Street, to 
the left to the main public library with its plain pediment 
and slim Ionic columns. The location right next to the 
library harmonizes with Starbuck’s marketing plan. At the 
entrance of the coffee shop a life-size glass window curves 
around to the left, providing superb voyeuristic views of 
pedestrians on the sidewalk. As you enter, you step directly 
into the living room area with stacked bookshelves against 
the back wall. Velvet armchairs face each other with small 
coffee tables in the middle, creating intimate seating 
areas. The velvet chairs near the window are the prime 
seats, which people unfortunate to score a wooden chair prey 
upon. At the back of the long rectangular room is the coffee 
bar and a small Starbuck’s gift shop. There is a dark wooden 
table with electrical outlets suited for spreading out 
laptops and spreadsheets, dividing the living room area from 
the coffee bar. 

Since I have been cranky for weeks I hesitate to order a 
regular black coffee. It is very easy to get cloyed with a 
favorite food or drink in the US because of the super-sized 
portions served. The smallest cup of coffee is a size 'tall' 
(12oz.=0.35l.), after which one can choose between a 
'grande' (16oz.=0.5l.) and a 'venti' (20oz.=0.6l.). Half a 
liter of coffee seems a bit over the top, and it sounds 
absolutely absurd to my European mind. I finally end up 
choosing a 'solo' espresso. 

Sitting in one of the booth-like seats against the back 
wall, unable to obtain a prime seat, I feign to read my book 
while eavesdropping on conversations around to me. Three 
middle-aged men sit in three ash gray velvet chairs and 
converse loudly. A vivid dialogue develops, exchanged with 
half roaring, half shrieking, laughter. They mock a 
colleague in his absence and then clench their brows in 
concern while discussing the teeth of one of the men’s 
daughter. Two African-American women sit at a small table 
opposite the reading-table in the murky light, one of them 
with a yellow headscarf with black African motifs. Close to 
the entrance, in the seating area next to the animated 
conversation, a vagabond is playing solitaire. One by one he 
places the creased cards with rounded backs over one 
another, as if he attempts to stick them together. He 
rendered a couple of dollars in exchange for a small coffee 
to feel, in the warmth of the front room, nostalgia for a 
cozy living room and relives a sense of intimacy of having 
your own house. 

It's a bright, sunny, early autumn day, a typical New 
England Indian summer. Sunbeams radiate through the 
coloring, flickering foliage, and throw a puzzle-shaped 
shadow into Starbuck’s window. Autumn’s hand turns her 
colorful kaleidoscopic lens. The green ash tree near the 
sidewalk resembles, with its polychrome colors, somewhat a 
bronze statue: its stem sulphur bronze, its foliage 
intermittently copper green and ferric-nitrate golden. On 
the other side of the cross walk the top of a young red oak 
turns fiery red. These are the budding impressions of the 
autumn foliage for which Connecticut is 'world famous' in 
the US. 

In the world of marketing and entrepreneurship, Starbucks is 
a success story. It is one of those stories of ‘excellence’ 
taught as a case study at business school. Founded in 1971, 
it really began its incredible growth under Howard Schultz 
in 1985, and presently has 6,294 coffee shops. But what does 
its success really consists of? A large cup of coffee at 
Starbucks is much more expensive than at Dunkin' Donuts: 
$2.69 compared to $3.40 for a Starbucks' ‘venti’. But while 
Dunkin' Donuts offers only a limited assortment of flavors 
like mocha, hazelnut, vanilla, caramel and cinnamon, you 
will find exotic quality beans at Starbucks like Bella Vista 
F.W. Tres Rios Costa Rica, Brazil Ipanema Bourbon Mellow, 
Colombia Nariño Supremo, Organic Shade Grown Mexico, Panama 
La Florentina, Arabian Mocha Java, Caffè Verona, Guatemala 
Antigua Elegant, New Guinea Peaberry, Zimbabwe, Aged 
Sumatra, Special Reserve Estate 2003 – Sumatra Lintong Lake 
Tawar, Italian Roast, Kenya, Ethiopia Harrar, Ethiopia 
Sidamo, Ethiopia Yergacheffe and French Roast. So Starbucks 
offers luxury coffees and high quality coffee dining, 
reminiscent almost of the chic coffee houses I visited in 
Vienna. 

Every now and then, I grin shamefully and think back at my 
endless hesitation choosing between the only two types of 
coffee available in most Dutch stores: red brand and gold 
brand. Even up to this day I have no clue what the actual 
difference is between the two, apart from the color of the 
wrapping: red or gold. Not surprisingly, Starbucks appeals 
to the laptop genre of people: consultants, students, 
intellectuals, the middle class, and a Starbucks coffee is a 
white-collar coffee, while a Dunkin' Donuts coffee is a 
blue-collar coffee. In Dunkin' Donuts you will run into Joe 
the Plumber, Bob the barber, and Mac the truck driver. But 
what is it exactly, that attracts the white collared workers 
in the US to fall back into the purple velvet chairs? 

I imagine their working days filled with repetitive actions 
and decisions within a playing field of precisely defined 
responsibilities. How many of the players in these fields 
get through the day with its routines for simply no other 
reason than being able to enjoy their daily 30 
minutes-escape into the Starbucks intimacy where, for a 
brief moment in the day, you regain the illusion of human 
warmth and exotic associations of resisting the coldness of 
high finance? For 15 minutes you fall back into the deep, 
soft pillow of a velvet chair and randomly, and alas how 
important is that moment of utter randomness, pull a book 
from the shelves. While, in the background, soothing tones 
resound of country blues, with its recognition of deep human 
suffering, a blaze of folk with the primary connection with 
nature and tradition, or of merengue reviving the passionate 
memories of adventure and love, you gaze out the window and 
ponder about that simple, volatile reflection in the moment, 
strengthened by the physical effect of half a liter of 
watery coffee that starts to kick in and the satisfaction of 
chewing your muffin, bagel, cake, brownie, croissant or 
donut. It is, above all, that bodily ecstasy caused by a 
combination of caffeine, sugar and the salivating Pavlov 
effect. You remember the struggling musician behind the 
counter taking your order, the amateur poet as you pay her 
for the coffee and give a full dollar tip, feeling a 
transcendental bound in your flight from reality. You stare 
with a fastened throbbing of the first gulps of coffee at 
the advertisements and poems on the bulletin board, and 
dauntlessly you think: They are right, they are so right! 
and what do I care? Why should I care? Fuck my boss, fuck 
the system, fuck everybody!' 

But then you look at your watch and notice you really have 
to run again. 'Well, too bad, gotta go!', or people will 
start gossiping for being so long away from your desk. And 
while you open the door, an autumn breeze blows in your 
face, the last tunes of the blues solo die out as the 
Hammond organ whispers: 'I throw my troubles out the door, I 
don't need them anymore'. 

Coffee in the US is a subculture that massively floated to 
the surface of the consumer’s society. Starbucks is more 
than coffee, it's more than just another brand on the 
market, it is a social-political statement, a way of 
perceiving how you would like to live, in other words it is 
a culture. Starbucks is the alternative to Coca-Cola and so 
much more than just coffee: it's chocolate, ice-cream, 
frappuccino, travel mugs with exotic prints, cups and live 
music, CD's, discounts on exhibitions and even support for 
volunteer work. 



About The Author

Remko de Knikker is a contributor to Szirine.com (personal 
website: www.mindxp.com). Remko studied West European 
history in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is currently 
employed as a bioinformatics programmer at Yale University. 
He wrote two short stories 'A Short Story about Andrzej and 
Roman' (© 2003) and 'Theombrotus or the Pharmacia' (© 2003), 
is the editor-in-chief for Boilingpoint.nl, and a columnist 
for Sargasso.nl. He was a winner of the Bulkboek songtext 
contest (Stef Bos: Het verlangen vrij te zijn), and 
published two CDs: 'Blockbuster' (© 2003 Blockbuster) and 
‘Handful of maggots’ (© 1999 Blockbuster). 

 

Article first appeared on Szirine literary magazine on world 
cultures at http://www.szirine.com

Author's homepage: http://www.szirine.com/authors.php?aid=2

 

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