The $4 Cup Of Coffee. How Did We Get To This Place?

The Soul’s Slow Demise

Whether you drink it or not, you must admit that coffee is a strong part of our image of Americana.

In the wide open plains of the Old West, coffee was a just reward for a day’s work. The dusty, chiseled faces of cowboys would gather around the evening campfire, relaxing from a long day of driving cattle. A makeshift spit hanging over a fire held a battered pot that would pour hot liquid into tin cups.

The Depression era imprinted another image of coffee on our minds. A man standing on a corner, clothes worn, eyes reflecting the hopelessness of the day. His request was simple, echoed in a polite tone, “Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?” The money was for a hot cup of coffee.

But today, coffee is much more than these images of old.

Look at the state of coffee drinking in America today. Many mornings, we drive to work and speak to no one until the morning cup of coffee. And that cup of coffee in a tin has graduated to a $4.00 Cup of cappuccino.

Can you hear the laughter of the cowboys now?

All of this has happened slowly. It somehow snuck up on the unsuspecting public. Stealthily, without warning, we were inexorably sucked into the vortex of some mad coffee conspiracy, perpetuated by Juan Valdez, his burro and the coffee cartel.

While we were looking away, the baseline; the cost of a single cup of coffee — began inching its way up. I remember the day clearly when I bought a cup of coffee at a 7-11 and innocently handed over a dollar bill. The clerk looked at me like I was an alien… “Like it’s $1.14, man,” she said. I choked as I grabbed some change and handed it over.

Once it went over a dollar, it was all over. Now, the sky is the limit.

Frothy, steamy, murky concoctions with shaved chocolate and cinnamon are brewed with milk — steamed, whipped, or stirred. By the millions of cups we shell out two, three and four dollars apiece because it’s different than plain old “joe.” We never noticed the incremental, upward shift of prices.

Life works much the same way. I have allowed the slow creep of things I once opposed to bully their way into my life. What I once called a lie I now call a slip of the tongue. What society once called sin is now emancipation and freedom. What was once reprehensible and wrong is simply another lapse of good judgment.

Oh, for the day of a dollar cup of coffee and an innocent heart

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