I love Delhi. I do not love getting coffee in this city, though.
I put myself through a year of college (and by "put myself through" I mean "earned enough money to buy several pairs of unwisely high-heeled shoes") by working in a coffee shop. Formerly a coffee shop naif who cringed away from terms like "doble" and "macchiato," I soon started tossing around phrases like "orgeat" and explaining to people the real difference between coffee and espresso.
This was great, but now I pretty much hate coffee service everywhere. Particuarly in Delhi, where people seem to have a very different cultural attitude towards coffee.
In the US, coffee means "on the go." The transaction should be as speedy and anonymous as possible, a little like buying cocaine on a street corner or taking a stroll in certain San Francisco neighborhoods after dark. The strange Seattle trend of topless baristas basically created the great American pastime: ogling scantily-dressed women while injecting caffeine directly into the aorta.
In India, nothing tastes good unless enjoyed in full public view, with as large a crowd as possible. Most critically, LOTS of people should see you waiting for your coffee, so they realize that you are an important person who can afford to pay for tepidly brown liquid that has been poured over an overcooked handful of sad South American beans.
Or so I assume. Because I have never gotten a cup of coffee in under twenty minutes in any coffee shop in India. At a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, I once got an ENTIRE caesar salad in half the time it took the barista to pour pre-prepared hot coffee into a paper cup.
"Two minutes, ma'am," he kept saying. In two minutes I would have served your entire line and earned five times the tips, asshat, I narrowly resisted shouting back. Instead I said, "In two minutes my plane will depart from this airport." He shrugged, as if wondering why I was bothering him with my problems.
The other day I sat in a Cafe Coffee Day for nearly an hour, but none of the many waiters came to take my order.
"See, you have to understand the South Indian coffee culture," said my friend K. "Their philosophy is that they don't want to bother you."
"Why would I come to a coffee shop if I didn't want coffee?" I asked. "Waiters in restaurants don't have this problem."
"But that's just the coffee culture."
"What about the coffee business strategy?"
She didn't answer, like my question was either too stupid or too offensive to consider. Interestingly, CCD does have a "service charge" for people who sit around for too long without ordering anything. So their businesss strategy appears to be to ignore customers until the customers get annoyed enough to either A) throw silverware at the wall until coffee arrives or B) leave, but not without paying a service charge.
I can see why this is ideal for the waiters, who basically get paid to glide around an air-conditioned room clutching menus and smiling mysteriously. The waiters probably think that gliding around is their actual job, and actually making coffee is some perverse act they only perform as a favor for their favorite customers. They have no reason to think otherwise, since Indians don't normally tip.
This all boils down to the fact that I keep foolishly wandering into coffee shops with five minutes to spare and expecting to get my order filled. Meanwhile the waiters hop around on one leg, do yoga, chat with their families on the phone, holler at their friends in the stall across the street, make faces at themselves in the mirror, poke furiously at the cash register, and do various things that all seem designed to stave off the moment when someone, somewhere, will have to produce a caffeinated beverage.
Meanwhile, I stew in rage.
I put myself through a year of college (and by "put myself through" I mean "earned enough money to buy several pairs of unwisely high-heeled shoes") by working in a coffee shop. Formerly a coffee shop naif who cringed away from terms like "doble" and "macchiato," I soon started tossing around phrases like "orgeat" and explaining to people the real difference between coffee and espresso.
This was great, but now I pretty much hate coffee service everywhere. Particuarly in Delhi, where people seem to have a very different cultural attitude towards coffee.
In the US, coffee means "on the go." The transaction should be as speedy and anonymous as possible, a little like buying cocaine on a street corner or taking a stroll in certain San Francisco neighborhoods after dark. The strange Seattle trend of topless baristas basically created the great American pastime: ogling scantily-dressed women while injecting caffeine directly into the aorta.
In India, nothing tastes good unless enjoyed in full public view, with as large a crowd as possible. Most critically, LOTS of people should see you waiting for your coffee, so they realize that you are an important person who can afford to pay for tepidly brown liquid that has been poured over an overcooked handful of sad South American beans.
Or so I assume. Because I have never gotten a cup of coffee in under twenty minutes in any coffee shop in India. At a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, I once got an ENTIRE caesar salad in half the time it took the barista to pour pre-prepared hot coffee into a paper cup.
"Two minutes, ma'am," he kept saying. In two minutes I would have served your entire line and earned five times the tips, asshat, I narrowly resisted shouting back. Instead I said, "In two minutes my plane will depart from this airport." He shrugged, as if wondering why I was bothering him with my problems.
The other day I sat in a Cafe Coffee Day for nearly an hour, but none of the many waiters came to take my order.
"See, you have to understand the South Indian coffee culture," said my friend K. "Their philosophy is that they don't want to bother you."
"Why would I come to a coffee shop if I didn't want coffee?" I asked. "Waiters in restaurants don't have this problem."
"But that's just the coffee culture."
"What about the coffee business strategy?"
She didn't answer, like my question was either too stupid or too offensive to consider. Interestingly, CCD does have a "service charge" for people who sit around for too long without ordering anything. So their businesss strategy appears to be to ignore customers until the customers get annoyed enough to either A) throw silverware at the wall until coffee arrives or B) leave, but not without paying a service charge.
I can see why this is ideal for the waiters, who basically get paid to glide around an air-conditioned room clutching menus and smiling mysteriously. The waiters probably think that gliding around is their actual job, and actually making coffee is some perverse act they only perform as a favor for their favorite customers. They have no reason to think otherwise, since Indians don't normally tip.
This all boils down to the fact that I keep foolishly wandering into coffee shops with five minutes to spare and expecting to get my order filled. Meanwhile the waiters hop around on one leg, do yoga, chat with their families on the phone, holler at their friends in the stall across the street, make faces at themselves in the mirror, poke furiously at the cash register, and do various things that all seem designed to stave off the moment when someone, somewhere, will have to produce a caffeinated beverage.
Meanwhile, I stew in rage.
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