There is a new trend where it comes to coffee. Apparently, people are going into Starbucks with Smartphones in hand and ordering drinks they saw on TikTok. Yes, coffee drinks they encountered on an app.
Lessons in coffee.
Coffee is a sacred drink, given to us lowly humans many centuries ago by the coffee gods. There are many legends about how this started, but the most popular comes from the land of Ethiopia.
First, let’s get things straight. The world was sleepy back then. Darkness, disease, and death would sweep the lands without warning. The people prayed to the gods, day and night, for help.
And then, one day, in the forests on the Ethiopian plateau, there sat a humble goat herder named Kaldi. He was a kind and loving man, but sleepy.
Kaldi was drawing little lambs in the dirt with a stick when he noticed his goats behaving oddly. They were doing pushups and forming Conga lines. He saw that after eating the berries from a certain tree, his goats became so energetic that they did all things and would not even want to sleep at night.
Kaldi picked as many berries as his little cart would hold and wheeled them to the abbot of the local monastery. The monks there listened and nodded. They sat with their legs crossed and closed their eyes for hours. Then, they made a drink with the berries and found that it kept them alert through the long hours of evening prayer. Those monks started doing push-ups and formed Conga lines all through the monastery. The abbot shared his discovery with the other monks at other monasteries, and knowledge of the energizing berries began to spread. The gods had given them the miracle bean, the elixir of golden elixirs. And the darkness lifted from the land.
As word moved east and coffee reached the Arabian peninsula, it began an incredible journey. Coffee and its beans would move all the way around the world. And then came Starbucks.
So, coffee was given to us straight from the heavens, and we should be grateful for our good fortune to have the stuff in steaming hot mugs every morning. We should be reverent of our coffee gift.
I am a purist. I like my coffee black. And extremely hot. I give thanks for my coffee every day.
But there is something sacrilegious about adding foreign oddities into cups of coffee and putting these misfortunes on TikTok.
Strawberry Gummi Bear Refresher?
Iced White Mocha with Sweet Cream Foam and Caramel Drizzle?
Pink Drink with Vanilla Sweet Cold Foam?
This is not coffee. This is absurdity.
Apparently, the baristas at Starbucks, and other coffee shops across the nation, are not very happy with this melee either. The TikTok-ers go into their stores, requesting these drinks, which contain dozens and dozens of ingredients, and then complain when they “don’t look like they did on TikTok.”
In addition, these people cause long lines and long waits at the Starbucks, as the baristas try to accommodate them and prepare the horrendous drinks.
They are not coffee drinkers. That is not coffee.
If you want blender drinks, buy a blender.
If you want an ice cream cone, go get one.
But don’t piss off the coffee gods.
Amen.
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I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
— T.S. Eliot
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Humanity runs on coffee.
— Unknown
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Coffee helps me maintain my “never killed anyone streak”
— Anonymous
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Coffee is a drink. Not a drinky drink.
