Two coffee bars opening in Manhattan reflect this ascendant interest in brewed coffee. This week Stumptown Coffee Roasters reveals its most ambitious project to date. The company spent nearly $1 million to transform a neglected Greenwich Village storefront (it was once the Eighth Street Bookshop, a literary hangout that closed in 1979) into a coffee shop with unusually sumptuous details: coffered ceiling, walnut bar, custom wallpaper screened by hand in Portland, Ore. The shop includes a separate brew bar, where you may order any coffee in the catalog prepared on your choice of gadget, including AeroPress, Bee House, Chemex, French press, siphon and V60.

Stumptown Coffee Roasters, which is based out of Portland, Ore. and Intelligentsia Coffee, based out of Chicago, are expanding their locations in New York and flying their coffee nerd flags fast and hard.

I once interviewed Mike Phillips—the first American to win the title of World Barista Champion—from Intelligentsia Coffee to talk about what being a coffee nerd is all about. He taught me to always check the roast date on coffee bags and not to buy anything more than a week old. He taught me never to buy coffee “blends” like “Holiday Blend” or “Morning Blend” because roasters usually take leftover old coffee beans, mix them together and market them as blends to sell them to customers. He taught me that you can make pretty good coffee at home, but if you want a good espresso drink, coffee shops are the place to get those. Who wants to meet me for a cup?

According to the Center for Global development, the market for fair trade products has grown sixfold over the last seven years, to $7 billion.

But why, asks Foreign Policy‘s War of Ideas blog, is coffee pretty much the only thing Americans buy “free trade”?

One big reason is Starbucks, which agreed to start offering Fairtrade-certified coffee in 2000 and is now probably the largest single purveyor of fair trade products in the United States (UK grocery chain Sainsbury’s claimed to be the world’s top seller of fair trade foods in 2010. Though, again: mostly coffee and bananas.)

The CDG report also notes that it’s easier to monitor supply chains for commodity products that don’t need much processing rather than, say, clothing or footwear. And it’s probably easier for activists to target a big, highly visible chain like Starbucks that primarily relies on a single product—just tracking down all the stuff that goes into a McDonald’s hamburger would be exhausting.

Still, maybe we should start thinking about what other products would be good candidates for fair trade certification. Oil? Marijuana? Cucumbers?

I don’t know why you’d ever want to order this $47.30 coffee drink besides (48 shots of espresso! I can already feel the headache) dying, but here we are.

In Minneapolis, it’s already winter, and it’s cold. Not cold enough to wish it was a hundred degrees and humid, but enough to be out in the world without a scarf and think, “It is imperative that I purchase a scarf” ($10 – $30). To avoid impulse scarf purchases, my advice is this: Put a scarf in your bag and keep it there forever. Maybe also some gloves. Perhaps a hat also. But definitely a scarf. Do it now.

For each dollar you spend on coffee in a coffeeshop, you get:

1. coffee

2. a place to hang out for awhile (you know, the “third space”)

3. internet (if the place you are isn’t pretentious and terrible)

4. access to an electrical outlet (if the odds are in your favor)

5. smugness (if it’s organic, free trade, and indie)

6. opportunity to find true love (if that’s what you’re looking for)

To the fat cats over at Bridge Fresh market,

According to your sign, coffee prices increased 13%, and yet the price of your small coffee jumped 25% and your large coffee 20%. Stop hiding behind your graphs—you are greedy opportunists looking to fleece the working man at every turn. If you want to jack the price of your coffee, just do it without your Machiavellian logic. Look me in the eye when you take my quarter. I don’t want your “Sorry!”s. I want your recognition that you know exactly what you are doing. You are cowards.

Sincerely,
The Consumer

Ed Note: Matt Powers took a few weeks of an economics class during his freshman year at Pennsylvania State University, dropping it right before the first exam. He later settled for an English degree, graduating with honors. 

I used to work an office where we had a coffee pot and an espresso machine, and now I work in an office where we do not have that, but we do have the convenience of having a Starbucks next to our building. I bought a Starbucks card and have been reloading it every week or two for the past three months using PayPal so I could track how much money I’m spending on my daily cup of coffee before I head into work.

Three months = $120

Which I don’t think is actually that bad?

And yes, I do tag and categorize all of my emails. If you have emailed me, you have been tagged with something special!

We all have brains. This is how my brain worked one time. How does your brain work? 

This morning I woke up and decided it was a good day to work in a coffee shop. So I got dressed and left my house and walked to the coffee shop closest to my house. I walked in. There was Korean pop music playing. I walked out.

I walked to next closest coffeeshop. It was very crowded. And the one plug was just out of reach of the the only seat available. Success here involved a confluence of events that I just wasn’t sure was going to work out. It felt stressful. I walked out. 

I walked ten minutes to next closest coffeeshop. Good light. Good looking people. Door open to breezes. Chair right by a plug. Yes, yes, yes. There was a line, so I took a seat before ordering. I attempted to plug my cord into the wall. It fell out. I tried again. It fell out. I sneak-swapped sockets with the neighbor’s plug. It fell out. I looked around. There was another plug at the other end of the table, and also a seat. The universe loves me sometimes. I got up and tried the other plug. It fell out. I tried it again. It fell out.

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I went back to original chair and sat. I’d come too far for this not to work out! I considered asking the boy next to me if we could share his plug, but decided against it. It’s the kind of thing I would totally be okay with, but I know other people are not okay with things like this. (One time: A friend dropped me off at the airport and as soon as she drove away, I knew I’d left my phone in the car. So I rushed inside and got online and THE ONLY PERSON ONLINE was this guy I’d worked with for a second who I didn’t know very well, but he was MY ONLY HOPE. I IM’d him: “So I know this is weird, but can you call this number and tell the girl who picks up that my phone is in her car?” And he said: “Actually, no I can’t do that because that makes me uncomfortable, and the next time you’re in a spot, ask someone else.”)

I didn’t ask the boy if we could share a plug.

INSTEAD: I asked him if he would watch my computer for a second. (He said yes.) Then I got up and walked four blocks to the 99 cent store (well: two blocks to the hardware store, where I was directed one block to a computer store, where I was directed one block to the 99 cent store). In the 99 cent store, I bought a powerstrip ($2.99) to render the wonky plug usable. I was pleasantly surprised at the price. I had been prepared to spend … whatever it cost. It was thinking $7.) But I got lucky! $2.99. A STEAL.

And that is how I ended up buying a powerstrip before my first cup of coffee of the day. Cheers.

$100! It is a lot of money, and yet, it is also not a lot of money at all. Where did your last hundred bucks go, Molly McAleer?

$8.17: 82 Market on Melrose. Bottle of pinot grigio (I drank and threw out the bottle, so no specifics are available.)

$4.45:  Starbucks on Larchmont. Venti iced old school Americano with 2% milk and a blueberry vanilla Kind Bar.

$46.16: 76 station on La Tijera. Full tank of gas, 20 oz. Diet Coke and a small package of beef jerkey.

$8.50: Smoke City on Melrose. Dunhill cigarettes in the light blue box, two packages of Gushers fruit snacks.

$7.23: M Café on Melrose. Half pint of peanut kale and a chocolate chip cookie.

$10.86: Bristol Farms on Sunset. Easter lilies for a hostess gift.

$2.95: Starbucks at Pavillons on Melrose. Grande iced coffee with room.

$7.82:  Exxon station somewhere in North Hollywood. Pack of Marlboro Lights and can of Diet Coke.

Previously: Ruth Curry

Molly McAleer is a television writer and co-founder of HelloGiggles.com. You can follow her on Twitter here. Photo Credit: flickr/eflon

I know that I speak for many millions of Europeans when I express the hope that Starbucks will never make any profit in Europe and leave us alone. We see its intrusion into the heart of our culture not as a contribution that enriches it, but as a crude expression of marketing prowess that can only impoverish numerous small café operators.

Oh gosh, I love reading letters to the editors (hint: write me letters!), and this letter to the New York Times in response to this article about Starbucks, could basically come from Brooklyn, or Portland, or some other place where the young and hip live and prefer to get their coffee from their local cafés.

But I don’t mind Starbucks so much! I think their coffee is fine. There is a Starbucks next to the Awl offices, and that is where I grab a coffee before I start my morning blogging. There is actually a Stumptown located x blocks from the office, but I am too lazy to walk there! Stumptown coffee is good, but — a bit pricey? At my old job, I was going to an office where there was free coffee brewing in a pot next to the refrigerator that no one used to store their homemade lunches, because everyone just ate out all the time (the refrigerator mostly contained free soda and beers for everyone because startups like to provide perks like that). And now I’m spending $50 a month on coffee! That’s $50 I wasn’t spending before, which means there will have to be changes. To be continued…

Photo Credit: Dimitri N.