An Ode to Beautiful Brown Sludge

In an age of pour-over pretention and venti half-caf caramel macchiatos, a love letter to the mind-jolting, tongue-burning, time-killing power of a regular old cuppa joe.

Illustrations by Julie Delporte

When I quit smoking, the hardest thing to give up wasn’t the nicotine or the flavor; it was the symbolic time-out. To smoke a cigarette is to pause life in order to mentally process it, or simply to step out of it for a moment. A cup of coffee can be a prolonged version of the same experience: both the fuel that keeps us going and the indulgence that keeps us sane.

A watered down, slightly burnt cup of cheap coffee in an even cheaper paper cup with a lid that doesn’t quite fit can be one of life’s most satisfying small victories. Hold that leaky cup in the air like Lady Liberty’s torch as proof that your life is still your own, even during a brutal commute, too early in the morning, to a job you hate that doesn’t pay enough.

Stop and think about how many moments and memories were formed over a cup of coffee; how many daily activities are vastly improved by the addition of hot brown sludge. The coffee itself doesn’t have to be Venti or half-caf, fair trade …