Yusuf Ozaydin

Coffee shops don’t sell coffee. They don’t sell pastries or coffee beans or little things of whipped cream for your dog, either … Okay, they do; that’s kind of their whole point, but it doesn’t make sense. Coffee is one of the easiest things you can make at home. It is incredibly useful in the morning and objectively tasty (if you do it right). It’s so efficient that it seems blasphemous to have entire spaces dedicated to slowly sipping it while you sit sort of quietly and do whatever for hours on end. So why do coffee shops exist? And, more importantly, how have they beguiled me the way they have?

When I think of coffee shops, all my senses hit me at once with a hiss, a burn, the sweet bouquet of fruity, syrupy aromas, and the savory incense of fresh espresso beans. The first time I experienced this sensation was thanks to my uncle, whom my family and I stayed with on our trips to San Francisco. For me, every time I walk into my job at my local coffee shop, O’Henry’s, the smell of the fresh coffee beans immediately takes me back to the soft crashing of the waves at land’s end lookout near my uncle’s apartment. The sharp rocks stab my feet as I experience my childhood home away from home; I remember my first time riding the bus alone and that first sip of authentic milk tea. I feel comfortable and happy; the most influential moments of my life have been here.

My parents’ big argument that left things not quite the same happened in that apartment—off-season conditioning for my first-ever season of high school soccer in that neighborhood. My uncle’s home gave me access to the first coffee machine I ever touched, and I will never forget his smile while the simultaneous wonder in my eyes reflected in the stainless steel of the machine.

So why do coffee shops exist, and why am I so obsessed with them? The answer to my second question is simple: I love drinks, especially coffee, and I love to make them even more. The answer to the first question is a little more complicated: coffee shops sell stories. Every drink I make is a story, like a book. First, I make the cover. I need to grind the beans so fine that the water goes through and makes the perfect shot of espresso. The coffee must be extracted for precisely 17 seconds, a clean brown, hardcover book; the perfect shot. But sometimes, it pulls it for only 7, a worn-down, dirty book cover falling apart. No shot is the same. The theme of my story comes from the customer’s order, an Americano, the coffee world’s business report; a latte, a Harlequin romance novel; a frappe, a 7-year-old’s first writing project. The actual words of the story are each and every movement of my hands. Some end happy, with a smile on my face, telling the customer to come again, or my appreciative father thanking me on his way to a busy day at the office. Sometimes, the drink falls on the ground; that story ends there, and I write a new one.

Coffee shop stories bring people together. Regulars greet each other daily, lovers meet to share their comfort with each other, and books and screenplays are written alongside me as I create my own stories at the helm of the machine. As the people talk to each other, to their computers, I talk with the machine, and then I give them the recordings of our conversations, my stories. With every sip of their drink, I hope that they will use the words to add to their story because, with every drink I give, I add to mine. My story is about giving, and it is about creating