From dog walking to church services - we must have a coffee

Takeaway coffee. Pixabay

I CAN’T believe the fuss surrounding the question: is it wrong to take a coffee to a job interview?

A question that first appeared on TikTok, posted by a woman expressing her dismay at young applicants turning up at her office with a takeaway drink, sparked debate across the globe.

There needs to be no discussion on this - of course it’s not acceptable. It’s sloppy, it’s rude and it’s just plain wrong. If I were hiring staff and anyone walked in carrying a coffee I’d write them off immediately. If you can’t spend half an hour without a coffee in your hand, it’s not a good sign.

But that isn’t the subject of this column. The furore simply made me wonder why the world is so obsessed with this drink.

I walked past a sports field the other day, where half the people watching on the sidelines were clutching takeaway coffees.

I travelled on a train last week, watching many passengers board with takeaway coffees.

And I shook my head with incredulity while reading online about church goers asking of it’s okay to carry coffee into services.

Often, when out and about, I will see people rushing around, a mobile phone in one hand and a takeaway drink - most likely coffee - in the other. Some walk dogs while supping. I often wonder what would happen if they fell over.

I don’t know why people don’t just hook themselves up to a drip.

Railway stations, in particular, are a hot bed of caffeine indulgence. At mainline stations there’s not only several coffee outlets on the main concourse, but on individual platforms too.

Small shops now sell takeaway coffee, as do petrol stations - do people drink and drive? Surely this affects concentration?

Younger generations simply can’t function without it - and they are ridiculously discerning. Not for them the instant coffee of my youth - Gold Blend or Mellow Birds. They splash out vast sums on fancy coffee machines.

Many peole have expensive coffee machines. Picture: Pixabay

Many workplaces now have expensive machines, not like in my day - a few granules in a cheap plastic cup we filled with hot water.

When I was young cafes sold coffee or tea, one or the other. It was delivered in a small cup with a saucer, into which it would slop over. Now the average cup is five times the size, and there’s a bewildering array of coffees, from Americano to espresso, latte and cappuccino.

The first time I heard of any coffee other than plain coffee was in the mid-1990s in the US sitcom Frasier, when the character Niles would order strange-sounding concoctions in his local cafe, the most memorable being ‘double decaf, non-fat latte, medium foam, dusted with just the faintest whisper of cinnamon.’ The show was set in Seattle, where the first Starbucks opened in 1971.

Now there’s umpteen such establishments on every street in every town and city centre across the UK. We - that’s not including me, I hate the drink - are obsessed with coffee. People must have bladders the size of reservoirs.

If, as the media constantly speculate, the Russians were to seek ways to incapacitate us, they don’t need to target undersea cables or oil pipelines, all they need do is disrupt the chain of supply for coffee beans.

A coffee-driven society however, a new thing in this country. We have, in fact, come full circle - in 17th and 18th-century England, coffee houses were commonplace, serving as social places where men would meet for conversation and trade.

The drink was described as thick, hot and unpleasant, but with an enjoyable aftertaste.

One thing is for sure though, not a drop would leave the premises. You wouldn’t see the Georgians piling into horse-drawn carriages clutching pots of the stuff.