Never offer a homemade coffee to a coffee snob. Never ever.

Picture by Shirley Kim

Life as an infamous coffee snob is hard. Not because you are constantly trying to track down someone that can make coffee as good as you can, but because of the terrible attitude you get from the non-coffee snobs around you.

Apparently going for coffee with a coffee snob is such a trying and stressful experience that I have few friends who will still come with me to grab a cup of coffee. Ok, I literally have no friends who will join me for a cup of coffee. They say if I promise to not order a coffee and therefore will not spend the next hour complaining about the sub-human that attempted to put perfection in a cup but failed to do so, they will come with me. What am I supposed to do? Order a cup of green tea and not want to kill myself? Get real.

The struggle of getting a great cup of coffee is real but it is amplified when I go to other people’s houses. I am always terrified of the dreaded question - “Would you like a coffee?"

There are two ways this question is posed.

1/ “Would you like a cup of coffee - it won’t be up to your standards though.”

So why the hell would you offer me one? I haven’t drunk instant coffee since 1996 when I was at boarding school. Why would I start now? I like my life, I am happy, are you intentionally trying to take this happiness away from me? It looks like you are, and yet, I am the rude one.

Offering any decent human being an instant coffee is exactly like this: You have a super stylish gay best friend who is very fastidious in their attire and they only wear Gucci. He always looks sharp in his designer threads and these designer threads are his reason for living. You respect that. But then one day he comes around to your place and you say “I have a pair of 1980 stone washed jeans, complete with elastic waist band. I know it’s not up to your standards but you should wear them to make me feel better about my own lack of style.” It’s just plain rude. You wouldn’t do it in a rainbow fit so don’t offer a coffee snob some of your revolting coffee that comes out of a can.

2/ “Would you like a coffee? I have a pod machine and it’s really good, you have to try it.”

No. No I don’t. I won’t like it, it’s going to be undrinkable and then it’s going to get awkward for everyone. Don’t try to push your inferior product on me because I will karate chop you into next Tuesday. I know what I like and it is coffee that is roasted fresh to order (beans go stale within 30 seconds of being ground, FYI) and comes out of a commercial coffee machine. I have a commercial coffee machine in my house, so don’t try to give me your pod crap. I may as well kill myself. It would be the same thing only less painful and over a lot quicker.

We are not in the midst of a zombie apocalypse so there is no excuse for this behavior. Water is fine to offer and us coffee snobs generally WANT the water when you offer your “coffee”. So when we say, no thanks, water would be great. Believe me, the last residue of human decency just went into not killing you, so don’t push the matter. Throw your coffee out the window before I do and fetch the glass of water.