Hype, you make me so tired

Coffee is a world of hype. Everybody claims to have the best coffee. Kona, Jamaican Blue Mountain, Guatemalan Antigua, Ethiopian Harrar, Costa Rican Tarrazu, etc etc., each with their own magic recipe that makes theirs the best. Some special combination of altitude, volcanic soil, rain, sun, and shade, makes this one better than the other. Then there is the outrageous and absurd hype. Like Kopi Luwak coffee, the one that gets eaten by a civet and then pooped out, selling for over $100 a pound. That’s what I would call, in coffee speak, single origin shit. Okay, I’ve never actually tried it, so I can’t knock it too hard. But seriously, all this hype has begun to disgust me. I’m so over it (hype that is, not coffee!).

Knowing what I do about coffee, I would say that there are certainly a number of factors that make one coffee better than another. I guess it’s like any product. Better care will result in a better product. The most important factors, in my semi-professional opinion :), are ripeness of the fruit (obvious, no?), drying the beans to the right moisture level, proper storage, and, perhaps most importantly of all, freshness. These are all common sense though. You pick your product ripe, you process it with care, store it properly, and get it to your customer fresh. Can’t it just be as simple as that? Or is that just too simple? Will nobody buy your product if you just tell it to ‘em straight? Does honesty have no value in our consumerist culture?

I’ve been thinking about hype a lot lately. And it’s not just coffee. It’s everywhere. In every aspect of life…work, dating, religion, politics…too many voices just telling you what they think you want to hear. Misleading and disappointing one innocent victim at a time. I think about what this means for society as a whole. Is this what makes us distrustful and cynical? It surely must be a part, a significant part. Sure, life will inevitably have its share of disappointment regardless, but the incessant spewing of empty words must accelerate that spiral.

Maybe the key is to just take it all with a grain of salt. You hear the message, you acknowledge it as hype but know better than to fall for it. But then that begs the question: when do you know when you’re hearing the truth? If you’re brushing off words that are actually being communicated to you, which ones are actually going to stick? Over time, I suppose, your gut sort of fine tunes its compass and makes it easier to distinguish the truth. Bouts of paranoia aside, we generally have an instinct that tells us who to trust. If we’re talking about a product though, trust can only come about through trial and error. I don’t think our guts have the same instinct about laundry detergent or plastic wrap (that Press 'n Seal stuff is crap, but I sure believed it would work wonders).

All ranting aside, I have a point. Life would be so much better if everyone was honest. A white lie here and there, for the sake of being polite, is fine with me. Beyond that, lies just pollute the natural state of our universe and harden our hearts.

So may our words hold meaning
Our message be true
And don’t spend a fortune
On coffee from poo.