To enjoy a coffee I don't have to be in the most glamorous place in the world.
Of course I love nice coffee shops, well decorated and with possibilities for gastronomic exploration. However, what I am referring to is the distinction of some essential things for a coffee to be an experience that occupies a place in your memories. For that you have to have spent a beautiful moment, or friendly, or intense, or serene, or full of laughter... These things are achieved most of the time with good service, good company and a well made coffee, no matter the simplicity (and sometimes simple is better).
In this photo, a coffee service in one of my favorite coffee shops “Sweet temptation”. The girls who serve are very friendly and really take care of the details: simplicity, beauty, hygiene and good coffee.
A good quality coffee, well roasted, tasty, hygienically prepared, served in clean cups, on a comfortable table to face your friends. Or where you can rest a book, a sketchbook, maybe write what you are thinking. Or listen to the music you like while you drink it.
Let the service be friendly and respectful of your brief stay in their spaces.
Sometimes that is enough to create a good memory of a coffee shop. Sometimes that is enough to come back again and again.
And to bring good friends with you.
In this photo, I'm with my friend Ligia. I haven't seen her much lately, as we both have complicated schedules. When we were able to make an appointment, I didn't hesitate to take her to Dulce Tentación.
But there are coffee shops that are just coffee shops that are in a hurry. They are more concerned with selling than with creating loyalty among their customers. So you are constantly pressured to consume. They take the cup away from you, pushing you to leave. Places like this don't understand the coffee business, they don't understand the sense of sociability. That's one of the things that ruins a visit to a coffee shop.
Did I tell you about the ugly mall with excellent coffee? It's at Crab Bay Market, in my town. I must have mentioned that the girl who prepares the coffee and the pastry chef there are a delight. I'm sure their great friendliness and not just the good coffee has made more than one customer return many times to this place.
In this photo, Chiquita, as she likes to be called, barista at the CrabBay Market coffee shop. This girl is all smiles.
The place may not be the prettiest or the most sophisticated, but the attention makes the difference.
There is also the opposite extreme, absolute neglect. Cafés where you sit down and receive no attention from anyone. Where no one guides your visit, nor are you offered a menu, nor are you informed of how you can get the only thing you have come for: a small place of peace or energy in the form of a simple coffee.
Just as there are places in which the bad experiences of the clients seem not to be the fault of those who run them but of being badly located.
I visited a while ago a place that combines several of the elements that can ruin a coffee for me. What follows is a very personal opinion.
It is a café on the main street of the commercial center of my city. My experience there was not good, and not exactly because the place was poorly attended, but because it is located in a very bad place for a coffee experience, although it is a business that, as I have seen, thrives. It is next to a central street with too much traffic, with too many people circulating next to the tables.
The space for diners is excessively narrow. You can feel the hubbub and smoke from the traffic. Everything becomes quite chaotic and noisy.
I must say. I had a coffee and a cheese sandwich. The coffee looked very good, but it turned out to be a watery coffee with a lot of foam. Too bad.
And although the place was renovated and has a relatively nice interior design it is very difficult to enjoy a coffee there. It is definitely a place to go to consume and leave quickly.
Although I suppose, on philosophical reflection, places to pass through must exist. The fleeting birds of your life.
No reason why the coffee shouldn't be good, though.