Coffee Isn't a Snob Fest

Not long ago, I pulled into the drive-thru of a well-known coffee shop.

When it was my turn, the employee asked what I wanted.

“Black coffee with two Splenda.”

He responded by asking how I wanted it brewed.

I thought perhaps he hadn't heard me, so I repeated myself.

“Black coffee. Two Splenda.”

The reaction I got made it pretty clear that I had failed some sort of coffee test. Eventually, with more than a little disdain, he told me he'd get me a black cup of coffee—as though my painfully unsophisticated order had personally offended him.

I drove away thinking about that interaction.

When did ordering a cup of coffee become something you could be bad at?

I love coffee. I care about good beans. I care about where they come from, how they're roasted, and how they're brewed. I think there is something genuinely interesting about learning why a coffee from Oaxaca tastes different from one grown somewhere else, or why adding chicory completely changes the character of a cup.

But sometimes I just want a black cup of coffee with two Splenda.

And I shouldn't need a vocabulary lesson to order it.

Neither should you.

The Best Coffee Is the Coffee You Like

That's one of the ideas behind American Joe Coffee.

We want to teach people about coffee without turning knowledge into a barrier to enjoying it.

Want to talk with us about origins, processing methods, roast profiles, extraction, or espresso? Absolutely.

Don't know what any of those words mean?

That's fine too.

Tell us what you like.

If you want a black coffee, we'll pour you one. If you want cream and sugar, put cream and sugar in it. If you want espresso, great. If you want something cold, sweet, blended, and topped with whipped cream, that's your coffee.

We might even help you discover something new.

But we're never going to make you feel stupid because you don't already know the language.

Coffee knowledge should be an invitation, not an admission requirement.

Maybe America Could Use a Little More of That

There is something distinctly American about all those different tastes.

We aren't one thing.

We come from different places. We have different families, occupations, traditions, experiences, beliefs, accents, politics, religions, and ideas about what constitutes a proper cup of coffee.

That's not a defect in America.

That's America.

The problem begins when difference stops being interesting and starts becoming a reason to look down on one another.

Coffee gives us a wonderfully ordinary opportunity to practice something better.

The veteran drinking black coffee can sit beside the teenager with the enormous caramel-whipped-cream creation.

A police officer can share a table with a teacher.

A mechanic can sit beside an executive.

A Republican and a Democrat can discover that neither one actually sprouts horns when viewed from across a coffee cup.

They don't have to agree.

They don't even have to like the same coffee.

They just have to recognize that there is room at the table for both of them.

Pull Up a Chair

That's the kind of place we want American Joe Coffee to become.

We take coffee seriously.

We don't take coffee snobbery seriously.

We'll happily tell you about the farmer who grew your coffee. We'll explain what different roast levels do. We'll introduce you to coffee and chicory, single origins, espresso drinks, and things you may never have considered ordering.

Ask questions. Experiment. Learn.

Or don't.

Order the same black coffee with two Splenda you've been drinking for thirty years.

Nobody behind our counter should ever make you feel lesser for it.

Because American Joe Coffee isn't supposed to be a club for people who already know the answers.

It's supposed to be a place for people.

And maybe something as simple as sharing coffee can remind us of something we've gotten pretty bad at remembering:

We don't have to be the same to belong together.

Different origins.
Different experiences.
Different tastes.

One table.

American Joe Coffee. Still Serving.