Yesterday was National Coffee Day, tomorrow is International Coffee Day. And in the spirit of great discoveries, I intend to speak my truth into the ether to see it rise. I hate National Coffee Day. I know it was probably supposed to be some huge celebration for me – and that’s probably what I called it when I was in a milder mood – but every National Coffee Day sends me into a fit of howling fantodes. It’s a fraudulent holiday, fugazi. There is no Gregorian justification for why National Coffee Day is celebrated when it is. No one knows how it all started – the first recorded nationwide Coffee Day was in Japan in 1983, and the first mention of it in America didn’t appear until 2005 – and I’m sure it started with good intentions, but the current version is a grotesque reminder of the common perception of coffee only as a commodity.
Being in the coffee industry – especially in the coffee news industry – National Coffee Day is an inevitable phenomenon. Around this time every year, my inbox is flooded with “heated coffee deals” or “where to get free coffee” and stories about the best coffee shops and breweries that crystallize what this holiday is really about. It’s a trade and traffic day, a red circle on the company calendar reminding us to dangle overpriced carrots in front of our noses.
But the reality of coffee is exactly the opposite: it should be like that Dear. Pushing for a bargain perpetuates the idea that coffee is coffee is coffee, a nuanced monolith of a crop, and that a cup of joe should cost a buck. Though in reality, coffee prices have stagnated significantly despite rising costs of almost everything else. Prices have been held immorally low for so long that we feel entitled to them, and any attempts to correct course are met with fierce resistance. (The price in market C has finally started moving in the right direction thanks to global warming-induced shortages – or traders’ concerns about it – and everything is fucked up about it.)
It’s almost impossible to name what exactly National Coffee Day celebrates. They are not baristas or producers, nor are they roasters, importers, pickers, processors or even cafes. Just as bad coffee doesn’t really taste like anything, with no noticeable floralness, fruity notes, or sweetness beyond the overall coffee-ness, so too does National Coffee Day, which amorphously celebrates coffee. He points to the thing he loves as if he had said “the two Corinthians,” but without the first idea of why he loved it or what it even means. This is because the goal is to sell, not celebrate. The whole thing feels fabricated, as if the main beneficiary of National Coffee Day are actually PR companies who operate it as an excuse to argue their own needs and secure another month of billing, while flooding my inbox (and the inbox of every other journalist who has ever written a story about food or drinks) with emails that we ignore.
I won’t go so far as to say that there shouldn’t be a National Coffee Day or that we don’t need one, because the truth is we should treat every day as National Coffee Day. Even for things that are essential to us and that we deal with every day, it’s good to remind ourselves every year why they are essential. That’s why we celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, that’s why parents and grandparents get such a day and that’s why there are places in the calendar where it’s worth remembering more essential moments in history in the hope that they won’t be repeated. It is certainly worth devoting one day a year to think about a drink that interests you and which you can read about on the Internet.
And if you want this day to matter in some real, physical way, go to your favorite coffee shop and treat yourself to a little treat. Or you could go to that recent mom and pop coffee shop you’ve heard about. Tip the barista a little more. Let it be a day of service – a day tips very well for the service, i.e. Buy that fancier bag of coffee that both the manufacturer and the roaster took a huge risk to make. Make coffee at home and give yourself five minutes to do nothing but sit and appreciate what you’re drinking. Do everything you love about coffee, and do it to the fullest for the benefit of those who make it possible. For me, it would be a cheerful National Coffee Day.
