Coffee the way I want it

I see a coffee machine with a screen the size of an iPad and I am already in a bad mood. Someone walks over, presses a button, and that is apparently the coffee-making part finished. I can press a button. I came here because I wanted someone to make me a coffee.

In my head the setup is very clear. I want a massive, twenty-grand La Marzocco, and behind it a barista who looks like they haven’t showered in a week and have just come out of a Berghain cocaine binge weekend. Somehow this person is about to make me a magical coffee. I have complete confidence in them and very little confidence that they know what day it is.

I want to see them work. Grind the coffee, weigh it, tamp it, pay attention to what comes out, steam the milk. All those little decisions that I am quite happy to leave to someone who cares about them more than I do. I like watching a person who knows what they’re doing. There is something reassuring about the fact that my coffee requires more from them than finding the cappuccino icon.

And then I want a glass of water with it. A proper glass of water. This is where an otherwise perfectly good morning can become unnecessarily irritating.

I absolutely expect water with my coffee. When I order a flat white or a cappuccino in the morning, I want enough water to actually have a drink. I hate the tiny glass with half a sip in it. I pick it up, it’s gone, and somehow I still feel as though I haven’t had any water. The glass has barely justified being washed.

What really gets me is that it is the same half a sip whether I order an espresso macchiato or a cappuccino. Exactly the same little offering. There is an entire cappuccino here and enough water to acknowledge that water exists. It doesn’t even wash the coffee down. Outrageous.

Someone has gone to the trouble of bringing a glass, putting water in it and carrying it to my table. We are so close. Use a bigger glass. Fill it. Let me drink some water without having to organise a second delivery before I’ve properly started the first coffee. Lovely.

That is coffee the way I want it. A ridiculous machine, someone working a little magic behind it, and a glass of water I can take more than one sip from.