Louis Wise on why coffee is the new alcohol

Forget lager — coffee is having a macho moment, says Louis Wise
Louis Wise15 August 2019

Weeks go by and still I can’t get the wrongful dismissal case involving one ‘PNC Global Logistics Ltd’ out of my head.

There’s a lot going on here, but the essentials are: two men sacked, a misogynist-sounding WhatsApp group and the nicknames the men used in said group. These were inspired by, of all things, coffee. One bloke was called ‘Full-Fat Cappuccino’; another was ‘Skinny Latte’. I’ve been finding this particularly hilarious, although I have to concede that if the names were going on drinks preferences alone, I’d be ‘Coconut Cortado’.

Poor old coffee, though. I know I should spend this column deploring the men’s online ‘banter’, which was the apparent cause of the dismissals; the chat, in which they compared female colleagues to certain porn actresses and glamour models, sounds really nasty and bleak. But what also bothers me is, how did it come to this? Twenty years ago, no group of blokes would message each other calling themselves ‘Al Cappuccino’ — you were ‘Five Pints’. Today, though, in a post-metrosexual world, alcohol is a bit boring, even frowned upon, and it’s more logical to dub your mate ‘Soy Venti’ as you glug a double espresso pre-gym.

Coffee feels like the new alcohol, really. Our pubs are all dying but our cafés are thriving, with everyone jacking themselves up on caffeine to the soundtrack of yet another anaemic Justin Bieber cover. It’s less fattening, sure, less incapacitating on a Friday night but it still frazzles your mind, yellows your teeth and absolutely ruins your guts. To be clear, I love it, but I’ve accepted that whichever way an army of super-trained Australian baristas sell it to you, it’s just another common vice. In fact, I’m surprised the wellness brigade hasn’t piled on to it more. I can see the moving redemption memoir now. ‘I used to think my flat white habit made me who I was. But what if I were happier drinking caffeine-free green tea, deleting all social media and whispering to geese?’

A long time ago, in the 18th century, coffee seemed a lot more civilised. It was in the thriving coffeehouses of London that the great minds of the day would meet, discussing all the big ideas. How sad then, today, that a frothy mocha is mostly just a cue for a gag about Katie Price. Then again, apparently those coffeehouses got a bit gross, too, and ended up as fronts for gambling and brothels.

I suppose that’s something that hasn’t happened in my local Costa. Not yet.

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