Criteria for a Great Coffee Place

Crowd and Cities shield us from the sense of mortality –Alfred Adler

I have always enjoyed studying in a coffee shop. I think to myself: is it the ambience? Is it the vibe? Certainly the aroma of Espresso and foamed milk brings some fond memories, but often times I can also brew myself some iced latte at home with ease. Moreover, from an economical standpoint, drinking coffee at a coffee shop is one of the worst financial decisions, as they are hopelessly overpriced. Even more so, their bitter taste doesn’t seem to appeal to our natural appetite for sweetness. Still, being a sucker, I cannot but think why. You see, the very same spot (not geographically but conceptually) occupies the heart of the French existentialists during and after the 2nd world war, even serving as a warm and special place for Ernest Hemingway, an author belonging to the lost generation.

Then on this day, on my cross-continental flight from the northern to the Southern Hemisphere, I picked up a book introducing the psychology of Alfred Adler, and this quote all of a sudden gives me some insight on why I prefer crowded places to engage in study and the so-called deep works. Before I start to conduct this psychological analysis on myself, I need to state the criterion by which I choose a good coffee spot for study/work:

  1. The place must have a clean restroom and places to charge my electronic devices. (this is certainly necessary given our current time)
  2. The coffee shop must have a certain aesthetic appeal: this is a rather tricky point, as you may have a different taste on shop from mine.
  3. The coffee shop needs to be frequented not by people I am familiar with. This usually results in places not in proximity to where I live. (Now this is an interesting condition, as I believe that not everyone has this condition. Hence, this is one of the crucial points for self-examination).
  4. The coffee shop needs to be moderately crowded: This means, at least the store staff needs to be present! This is a condition since in the future, we may have fully-automatic and robot-operated coffee shops–definitely not the kind of coffee shop I will visit! (Now this is again, a very crucial condition, certainly with my idiosyncrasy.)
  5. The coffee and the pastry needs to be decent: notice how I have the last entry that asks for the quality of their products (in a commercial sense). I’m not a connoisseur in coffee and bakery, so I don’t have much a say. However, the bottom-line is that the taste cannot spoil the whole mood of the stay, as we are hopelessly animals heavily influenced by sensations (especially smell and taste in this case). Since I don’t prioritize the more consumer-product aspect of a coffee shop, it seems to me that a coffee shop for me is more cultural than capital. Now you may ask about Starbucks–this is a point that I will return to.

Comfort, but with Distance

To be an individual among a community is a wonderful feeling.

The general atmosphere of a coffee place is a cozy one. You may think about it as a warm place in the winter, or as a shelter in pouring rain. Imagine a place with foamy hot coffee, the aromatic smell of beans, and some casual melody of jazz flowing in the air–almost feel like home. For me, however, this is not the case; I don’t go to coffee place to feel at home: or I would just stay at my place. Surely the coffee place presents comfort, but by the 3rd point, I must say that since I frequent places where the customers are total strangers, I am not trying to make it feel at home. The staff certainly stays more or less constant, but the purpose of visiting a coffee shop is rarely the staff; it is more generally speaking, a personal journey. So I say: comfort, but with distance.

Here distance refers to, in a first glance, the fact that people in the shops are total strangers. In Camus’ wording, this may feel like a dreadful depiction–strangers in a strange place. However, the vibe that a coffee place gives out is the opposite: you don’t feel isolated among strangers. This interesting contrast makes coffee shops ideal for people who enjoy solitude of the healthier kind and keeps the feeling of isolation at bay.

We are after all, beings that are both communal and individual. We experience the world only from our own perspective, and no matter how hard we try, it is impossible to have another person be in exact the same perspective as ours. This fact makes us fundamentally alone; however, this existential fact doesn’t and shouldn’t direct how we live, as ultimately we live based on beliefs, not facts. We believe that, almost out of natural instinct, that we belong to some larger community, to not be overwhelmed by this feeling of total aloneness. Here the tricky business is however, that being too involved with a community can be both physically and emotionally taxing, especially for thinkers and people who enjoy solitude (maybe they are the same kind). A sense of community and a composure that you are an individual that’s unbounded by the surroundings–such is the wonderful feeling a coffee shop gives. For this first aspect we need the 4th criterion, that the coffee place needs to be moderately crowded, and then for the second aspect we need the 3rd criterion, that you are a stranger in this place.

A Space for Creative Work

If we think about being a stranger among a group of people, but at a place like a strip mall, then the feeling that I described above wouldn’t show up: that is, the experience of an independent individual among a community. This means what we do at coffee shop fundamentally differ from that at a mall. In a coffee shop, we sip coffee and engage in activities like reading books and engaging in personal work (at least in Los Angeles, California), while at a mall, we are shoppers and pure consumers. The activity of reading and working are therefore the factors that necessitates the sense of individual, the entity that’s independent of the community, albeit momentarily.

Therefore, to maximize one’s well-being at a coffee place, conduct creative work is necessary.

This makes criterion 1 and 2 to be important as well. The coffee shop must have the facilities that allow our work to be carried out over a long time (as creative works are never short) and the aesthetic appeal can be seen as a booster for the mind to create.

I do have a list of places in LA that I find to more or less satisfy these conditions; you would be surprised that even chains like Starbucks have some gems that can make it work (these chain coffee shop usually have better guarantee for criterion 1 and 2). However, since I prefer criterion 3 to be fulfilled, I won’t give out the names here 😉