Coffee: On Collecting Coffee Cups

Coffee is a liquid that smells like fresh ground heaven. However, I did not always think this was the case.

When I was young, coffee was too bitter and pungent for my palette. Throughout high school and college, every attempt to get accustomed to the dark brown elixir ended with a near gagging experience, mouth flung open trying to scrape every molecule from my tongue. Then, in 1998, a summer abroad trip to Cortona, Italy changed everything. Nearly every morning, instead of nibbling on the Melba toast or other continental breakfast offerings provided at my accommodations, I would make my way to the city square to a small cafe. There, I would get a pastry and a caffè latte. The owner, a man in his thirties, taught me some Italian, and I him some English. Our conversations were mostly about food, ingredients, and how to say this word or that. But the ambiance of the open air cafe on the corner of Piazza Signorelli truly made the experience what it was. In my mind, the coffee, the cafe, the pastries, the piazza were inextricably linked. Thus, the coffee was all the better and the taste far less bitter.

Caffè lattes are a good foray into coffee drinking because they are mostly milk (hence the name). In the preparation, a caffè latte is made when hot milk is poured over espresso and served in a tall glass. The pouring, creates a subtle mixing of the two liquids that do not necessarily become completely blended in the process. Made in front of me in the open air cafe, the first step towards consumption was to meditate on the swirling cosmos of black and white. When espresso is poured over milk (milk being the primary ingredient) the drink is called a macchiato—meaning stained or spotted. In either case between a caffè latte or a macchiato, the bitterness of the espresso is cut by the thick hot frothy milk.

Returning to the United States from Italy, I began to explore options for capturing the essence of the caffè lattes enjoyed in Cortona. Disappointment quickly set in because American coffee was far more bitter tasting no matter how much milk was added to it. Also, any coffee to be found at the time was thin and lacking the sufficient amount of coffee grounds necessary for creating a rich flavor. And, even when a good tasting brew could be found, there simply was, alas, no comparison to the ambiance of gazing out over the piazza. Purveyors of coffee in the United States could not hold a candle to the memory of Italian coffee in my mind’s eye.

One year later, upon moving from LaGrange, Georgia to Atlanta, I discovered Starbucks. Their coffee was far better than other places I had tried—and it should be noted that independent coffee shops were not really a thing yet. The best thing Starbucks had going for it at the time was that the company was in the midst of its third place marketing concept. You go home, you go to work, and you go to Starbucks—where sometimes you were also working because 1999 was the beginning of a boom in freelance work done on laptop computers. Way before the prevalence of free WiFi, Starbucks was a place where you could plug in for internet access using an Ethernet cord (how barbaric). My Starbucks embraced the third place concept with the inclusion of a long narrow table with seating for 10 to 15 people. Nearby were power outlets and Ethernet ports. In the center of the table, running almost the its full length, was a long V-shaped trench filled with books (mostly classic and contemporary novels). The third place was a good environment, but still lacked a certain je ne sais quoi when compared to Piazza Signorelli. Another shortcoming of Starbucks was their caffè latte was absolute trash. I learned later that Starbucks intentionally over roasts their beans resulting in a slightly burned flavor. When mixed with host milk, the taste is something akin to a milky pile of bitter ashes scooped out of the fireplace. Blech. One year home from Italy, I decided that coffee in the United States was simply not good. Still trying to recover the flavor once remembered, and upon advice from the baristas, other customers, and friends, I set the caffè lattes aside and discovered cappuccino.

Cappuccino is similar drink to caffè latte in the sense there is more milk than espresso, but that commonality is where the similarities end. When done right, cappuccinos are made with cream instead of milk, topped with foam, finished with a dusting of cinnamon and powdered chocolate. Perfecto. Taste aside, there was one major problem with the beverage... cha-ching. My cappuccino habit was beginning to play havoc with my ability to pay rent, eat, fill up the car with gasoline, and, oh yeah, drink cappuccinos. Begrudgingly, I started to drink coffee (not espresso) mixed with enough cream to harden the clearest of arteries.

As the years went by, cream gave way to half and half, then milk, then I gradually went back to half and half, and then cream, with sugar and without, with flavoring or none, only to follow the cycle forwards and backwards, again and again and again, searching for the memory of caffè Italiano. At home, I tried drip, French press, Chemex, and vacuum press. Beans were bought pre-ground, ground at the store, or ground just prior to use. From the cheapest bag of beans to the most (reasonably) expensive Kona coffee from Hawaii, I drank my way into a caffeine-induced stupor, but no coffee ever gave me the satisfaction of the worst latte in that first summer of coffee drinking. The general dissatisfaction with North American coffee continued and I slowly got to the point where I took my coffee black to try and salvage some of the intended flavor that was too often lost by ill-managed brewing techniques. Finally, when in Prague in 2019, partly due to the sheer absence of Americanstyled coffee, I began to drink straight espresso. Then, finally, I had arrived at a brew that, even if lacking the ambiance of a piazza or other exotic environs, has a taste that takes me back to that of fresh ground heaven.

Back in my days living in Atlanta, people, hipsters charged with anti-capitalist, anti-corporate sensibilities, had a real problem with Starbucks. To many, the company represented the commercialization of an idea, an ideal, the notion that coffee was a beverage meant for intellectual as well as physical consumption. At the time, I was, perhaps, on the fringe of hipster culture. Mostly, I just wanted a good cup of coffee. But, when a friend admonished me for drinking corporate coffee, being a bit of an anarchist at heart, I strayed from the Starbucks nest and went with him to Aurora coffeehouse.

In the early 2000s there were three Auroras in Atlanta, a handful of Caribou Coffee shops, and more Starbucks than you could shake a stick at. Aurora was suffering. Two of locations were due to close because of revenue lost to larger chain coffee venues. In a push to capture the attention of like-minded, left leaning coffee drinkers, Aurora launched their small not bitter campaign—as if to invoke the notion of yes you can have your corporate coffee, but it will not keep the little guy down. Well, as far as hipsters and anti-capitalists and anti-corporate America-ers were concerned, that message was one we could get behind and wave the banner of caffeine freedom. There was a major problem with Aurora’s though. The coffee was bad.

Remember, at the time I was admonished for subscribing to corporate coffee and taken to Aurora, Piazza Signorelli was still a recent enough echo in my mind and on my palette, that coffee in the United States was still proving to be not all that. Starbucks was consistently passing cups of bitter fireplace ashes across the counter, so the call of small not bitter carried the promise of something better—and yes, the allure of an independent coffeehouse also evoked the je ne sais quoi missing in the third place. However, the notion of small not bitter was not merely a battle cry at the barricade, it was also a description of the cup of burned asphalt Aurora served in their delicate cups—20% smaller than their corporate counterparts and cappuccino-level prices for a cup a merely brewed coffee.

Okay, I get it, independent coffee shops have to charge more—face it, Aurora had already lost two-thirds of its stake in the emerging Atlanta coffee scene. It is also understandable that sizes might be smaller. Big isn’t always better. In Italy, I had a cups of espresso after dinner damn near served in a thimble. But to brew my coffee in a car radiator was unacceptable. Small not bitter was a perfect way to not describe the experience of Aurora coffee on the palette . Since then, the only coffee I have had that bad was at Coffee Lab in Chicago, in 2021—a taste so bad, I think it thinned my eyebrows. Despite the near death experience is was to drink coffee at Aurora, people— hipsters—loved it. They waved the banner. And they continued to cast aspersions that I would spend my hard-earned rent money at Starbucks.

In 2002, squarely addicted to coffee, I moved from Atlanta to New Orleans to attend Tulane University for graduate school. Across the city were countless varieties of coffee shops, some corporate, but just as many, if not more, independent. A short five block walk from home was a PJ’s Coffee, a New Orleans chain, but a chain none-the-less. PJ’s clearly was aligned with the third place concept of Starbucks and they did it well. The coffee was consistent and reasonably passable for, coffee and not ash or asphalt. The sweet treats were good also—they had a brownie-topped cookie that was euphoric. And, probably most importantly, it was in New Orleans where the average street corner looks like a European vista. Aside the fact the heat and humidity are at Dante levels, the city is beautiful. Finally, the trinity of coffee, conversation, and scenery all came into alignment and my heart was at peace.

Too ostentatious of a statement, you say? This is coffee we are talking about, remember.

Just as my heart, mind, and soul were returning to Piazza Signorelli, a brick came crashing through the window. PJ’s, as I said, was a New Orleans company, but it was still a chain. And, just like in Atlanta, I was running with a group of would-be hipsters, anticapitalists, and anti-corporate minded people (at Tulane, I was enrolled in the Master of Fine Arts program in photography).

How could you frequent such an establishment and give your money to the man while not supporting the local independent coffee shops? Um, isn’t PJ’s local? That is not the same thing. Um, okay (cue sarcasm). Where should I get my coffee? The answer, was Rue De La Course.

Rue (at least the one location of the two I was supposed to patronize) was about one and a half miles from Newcomb College of Tulane University. A short walk for sure, faster on bicycle, nothing to think of at all on a motor scooter (all my modes of transportation while living in New Orleans). Like PJ’s the coffee and food were good and the place certainly had ambiance. The location on the corner of Carrollton Avenue and Oak Street was (and is) situated in an old bank building. Walking in through the front brass doors reminiscent of the Florence Baptistry the space is large and lofty with a touch more than two floors of open air between floor and ceiling. The tan stone interior is illuminated by twostorey, round-topped windows to one side and antique brass chandeliers overhead. A long black counter to the left stretches the length of the building with a weatherworn (customer-worn) wooden service area. On the wall behind the counter are a half dozen black chalkboards of varying sizes each inscribed with standard offerings of drink and food and daily specials. Rue De La Course was, by all accounts and personal experience, amazing.

As it is my way to meander from point to contrasting point, despite all Rue had to offer, the coffee was just, coffee. As I said, flavorwise the coffee was not significantly better than PJ’s (which was closer to where I lived), the food was comparable, and ambiance, though different than the road-side tables at my PJ’s on Magazine Street, was not significantly better.

I’m just going to go to PJ’s. What? You’re going to give yourself over to corporate coffee? Um, okay. Like in Atlanta, my hipster, anticapitalist, anti-corporate friends admonished me for making poor choices when it came to coffee. Cue silent sarcasm.

It was at that point I realized how people fall into corporate branding even if trying to be anti-corporate. Both Aurora and Rue De La Course had sold the idea that they were the vestiges of intellectual elitism. If you are a hipster, anti-capitalist, and anti-corporate America and want to both support local while also sticking it to the man, then buy your coffee and sweet treats here instead of there. Um, okay. Recently, my daughter joked that capitalism will sell you a communist t-shirt. She isn’t wrong. And both Aurora and Rue were (are) businesses. And businesses’ primary objective is to make money. Neither of these coffee shops made the banner, they just waved it as a means to call others to the barricade— and by the way, that will be $30.

People are constantly defining and redefining themselves on the search for who they think they are or who they want to be. They are searching for the signs and signifiers of culture that indicate, this is who I am, these are my beliefs, and you can see these aspects of my character based on the logo affixed to this wax-paper cup in my hand. I drink at Aurora where we get it that corporations exist but I choose to stand apart. I drink at Rue De La Course so I am an intellectual who understands the difference between local and independent. I just want a good cup of coffee, but too, there is something of experience and identity wrapped up in my search to recapture the first summer of drinking caffè lattes in an open air cafe on Piazza Signorelli in the summer of 1998. People who drink coffee are not merely consuming hot water passed through roasted and ground beans, they are both infusing and expressing identity through the beverage, the act of drinking, and the cup. The cup that carries the identity of its source, the brand, the idea, the ideal. How can you consider yourself enlightened if you drink at Starbucks or PJ’s? You have to drink at Aurora. You have to drink at Rue.

It was at that point, in the fall of 2002, I began going to as many different coffee shops as possible for the purpose of collecting the cups. Each is not merely a vessel for the consumption of a beverage, but is a symbol of someone’s identity. When presented with a variety of options, people choose to align themselves with a product that most closely reflects how they regard themselves in the world. Clearly, the people I knew who preferred Aurora or Rue De La Course, were expressing themselves in the choice they made. In another way of thinking, people tend to make choices based on three key factors: familiarity, novelty, or dissatisfaction with something else. In my own journey of coffee drinking, I have been spurred on by my desire to recapture the familiarity of Piazza Signorelli, my dissatisfaction in the flavor, and the novelty of identity that set me on my road to collecting cups.

Clearly, my personal history and journey with coffee has been defined by experience. The beverage is not merely a drink, or the combination of flavor, venue, and companionship, but instead coffee is a chosen method used to define how I experience the world. In my adult life, I am not really a collector of things anymore. I seldom buy souvenirs and try to live minimally in most areas of life and home. When traveling—which I do as often as I can—my favorite pastime is to find a cafe or coffee shop, get a cup of fresh ground heaven, and sit gazing at the vista, observing the interactions between people, and generally soaking in the environment.

Afterwards, when I look at the image of cup drank from on the streets of Dublin, Seattle, Hoboken, or the gas station off exit 23, the visual image takes me back to the thoughts and observations of the place. My memory is chiefly visual and visceral. To see the image of the cup is a reminder, or prompt if you will, of the observations and thoughts attached to them. People, no matter where they are in the world are attracted to their third place. They fall into habits and structures of living that exist in patterned activities. They get to know their baristas and fellow customers. A familiar nod becomes hello how are you, then how’s life treating you, then how are the kids. Before you know it, the barista is making your chosen beverage as you walk in the door. Coffee shops and their denizens are centers of cultural activity for the everyday people in the world. They are in a sense, piazzas. And, if one looks and listens close enough, you start to unravel that culture and understand the tone of the place and the personalities of the people. Images in this book are not merely snapshots of wax-paper cups, they are elements of culture frozen in time.