Caffeine IV: Strange Brew

Second Cup has been on the Canadian upscale coffee scene since 1975, with mixed success. Perhaps it comes by its name because it gets things half-right, so needs two cups to fill expectations. In general, the Second Cup experience falls somewhere between Starbucks and Tim Hortons. It sells coffee at upscale prices, but pinches pennies obviously - a cabal of stringent bean counters offering astringent beans.

Since the early part of this decade, it's been owned first by Cara Operations - caterer to students and airlines - and later something called Dinecorp Hospitality, headed by a former Cara CEO. The affiliations may not inspire confidence among current and former Cara-feteria diners, aware of Cara's parsimony. Food was all 'bidness' and mouths were mere units. So, Cara and luxury coffee may appear to be a schizophrenic match, and in fact the Second Cup experience reflects this in some ways.

In Ottawa, the chain often matches Starbucks outlets corner for street corner, but seems to be trying to do it on a more restrained budget. Certainly Second Cups have the the iconic large espresso pumps, and many are possessed of large potted plants and big comfy chairs grouped around gas fireplaces. These are nice touches for people looking for a cosy little upscale experience for the price of a coffee. Inside, correct colours have been carefully selected by decorating consultants, staff are personable, but the spaces remain feeling barer and acoustically more live than is desirable. For the Ultra Cosmic Top Sekrit Project to succeed, acoustics are important. The Second Cup's distract. True luxury enfolds one in discrete muting. If one accepts the proposition that upscale is warm, the gestalt here is cooler than it should be, even for Marshall McLuhan.

And Second Cup's current logo, like its retail spaces, sports a somewhat stripped feel. Earlier logo iterations were gold leaf on darker backgrounds, often in three-dimensional carved wood. Artistically, they looked edgier and more stylized. An interim version attempted to duplicate the wood in thick Styrofoam. Closer than, say, five metres, it looked like the cheese it was. The current minimalist version is a one-dimensional, bland, over-homogenized pabulum of commercial art cliches that substitutes painted drop shadows for actual depth.

SC's trademark brew bouquet is emblematic also: it's a lighter roast than that favoured by Starbucks - thinner-bodied, fruitier and more acidic on the palate. In earlier times, espresso drinks sometimes tasted of coffee tinted dishwater, rather than the requisite velvet darkness, because baristas drew so inconsistently. Latter-day coffee machines may have cured this, but as in the case of Starbucks, automation reduces the luxurious sense that a skilled artisan is crafting a small treasure just for you.

Caffeine II: Veni, vidi, vici... venti?

Lately, Starbucks' exponential race toward world coffee domination has reached the point of satire. It was driven early on by roasts dark as sin, giant manual Gaggia espresso pumps, shops staged in earthy siennas, browns and oranges, and attitude heavy baristas. All lent whiffs of fashion forward luxury and edginess. Lately, as company stock dividends have plateaued, these have been augmented with in-house music production and distribution, and an array of rather costly stainless coffee toys.

The jury remains out on whether Starbucks' putative 'culture' may have diversified to the point of dilution. Although the charming-looking little gray-haired lady who reads newspapers all the time and the tattooed guy with pink hair and skintight low-rise jeans remain dedicated habitués of the Elgin Street store (pictured above), they cannot themselves comprise a culture.

The retro mermaid woodcut logo adds a siren call to a coffee demographic more upscale than Tim Horton's lowbrow target. It lends the company image weight, and a soupçon of the history it does not actually possess. It has also been carefully (and not altogether successfully) bowdlerized and Disneyfied over the years, de-emphasizing its racier aspects. She's a siren! Selling small sins! Why neuter her?












For the record, Tim Horton's kitschy mid-20th-century badging style is fully appropriate to a company that opened its first outlet in 1964 - seven years before Starbuck became anything beyond first mate on the Pequod.

Starbucks trademark dark roast borders on smokey and burnt. Appropriate to an oily espresso or French brew, it has not made a fan of every palate, especially those acclimated to venerable supermarket can coffees like Maxwell House, Edwards and Nabob.

Yet the heart of that dark roast, like the mermaid, hints at more exotic mythical depth than an ex-hockey player's retirement plan. At least if you're not Canadian. Tim's still claims to be bigger here. Its prosaic ethos packs gladly into a lunch bucket thermos, but Starbucks sells a mystical experience supposed to be worth paying for and waiting for, rather than quickly-slung cups of joe and deep-fried sugar pastries. Naturally, one pays extra for coffee positioned as an acceptable indulgence, with just enough of an air of lingering sin to make it enticing. The aroma is equal parts over-roasted coffee and imagined brimstone.

Minimum-wage baristas these days are not overly knowledgeable about the coffees they purvey. Nor can many any longer draw a proper espresso unassisted. The corporation opted some time ago to automate its espresso machines in the name of chain-wide drink uniformity. Although... Starbucks' chairman and returning CEO, Howard Schultz, has belatedly realized that quasi-artisanal coffee craft may also have had something to do with the chain's growth. It's a bitch trying to appear exclusive and emulate McDonalds at the same time...

Caffeine: double double or nothing?

Before we get the Ultra Cosmic Top SeKrit Project fully underway, we're going to need caffeine. And if we're going to need caffeine in Ottawa, Tim Hortons is a starting option. It's been considered the quintessential Canadian coffee chain for years, even when it briefly was owned by American interests. (How Canadian is that?) The furniture is hard, the ambience is fluorescent, the coffee is on the slightly better side of 'lousy'. What it's got going for it is donuts, urban ubiquity, a lot of 24-hour drive-by windows, and a population that loves it. The oddly corporate-looking Wikipedia entry mentions, apparently without irony, a Tim Hortons Culture.

Why? Because it's Spartan but serviceable, perhaps a submerged reflection of the country's Protestant ascetic stock. Protestants are far from the only patrons these days, but the mainstream Canadian ethos remains, at heart, no-frills and unfussy. The coffee may be lousy, but it's fresh, cheap, hot and highly caffeinated. If you order it predoctored with enough no-extra-cost cream and sugar - the famed 'double-double' - it's palatable enough to goose a groggy brain toward sentience for a kid's Peewee hockey practice at 5:00 AM, a sunrise departure to cottage country, or a red eye, cross-country barn-burner of a road trip.

Despite the fact that many in the thrifty Timmy's tribe may snicker at the prices Starbuckians will ante up for a 'coffee beverage' such as the decafnonfatnofoamskinnysoylatte, the two almost-separate demographics share an important commonality: the insider's off-the-posted-menu SeKrit Sign. Whether it's a doubledouble or a decafnonfatnofoamskinnysoylatte, only those in the know can order without the words tripping on hesitant lips. Knowledge of each is acquired only by observing other, more senior adepts and acolytes of the order. Each in its milieu is the caffeinista's equivalent of a Masonic handshake. And almost everybody wants to feel they belong somewhere...

Research Log

Being the first installment of a scientific account of an artistic inquiry into a certain mysterious phenomenon in and around the vicinity of the semimythical city of Ottawa, Ontario.

Wednesday, May -, 200-

Inaugural Project Meeting, Glebe BH

Parameters are discussed.

Photo: reversed fair-trade logo

Overheard: You aren’t even hiding your disgust.

Thursday, May -, 200-

Elgin BH

Methodology is discussed. Initial platform and responsibilities for actions.

Photos: reflective surfaces and clandestine subjects

Overheard:

... stuff going on locally is part of what sustainability is all about

the time is right

a lot of energy and issues

we want to capitalize on that

support systems around addiction

I’m really excited about the possibilities here

I think we can do some neat stuff

I insist I’ll take it

I wish

swallow my pride

yeah I would probably do that as well

medium skim latte

thump bang klatter

I used to love them as a kid I thought

they’re almost done

hello

salsa music

medium lemonade to go

ah yeah they’re just

so probably

a little bit

okay