I’d leave home for a seahorse

As still more coffee shops prepare to open their doors in Newbury, I do wonder when we’ll reach peak coffee. At what point will the supply of willing coffee drinkers just dry up? There are only so many people and, despite our best efforts, there’s only so much coffee we can drink. I’m trying to remember what we used to have in place of all these cafés and I can dimly recall greengrocers, fishmongers, shoe repairers and independent bookshops. All left in the wake of the grinding, steaming, gurgling coffee machine.

The truth is that no matter how many of these places open, they all seem to fill up. Do we drink more coffee than we did or just choose to drink it outside our homes? I think the key to the success of all these coffee shops is that they have carefully positioned themselves to appeal to a certain market, and we slot in accordingly. We all have our own coffee tribe. For the Europhiles among us there are pseudo-Italian chains with grainy black-and-white photos of grizzled old men sitting in wire chairs on sloping cobbled streets. The people who really don’t want to leave home at all find themselves in comfy cafés with old worn leather chairs, chipped tables and faux fireplaces.

Then there are super sleek trendy places decked out in in black, chrome and reclaimed timber, with nothing but three hard wooden stools to sit on, staffed by young men with quiffs. People with a social conscience seek out community coffee shops with their wonky tables and chairs, uncertain looking cakes and eager smiling staff. We even have a rock’n’roll café for the ageing hippies among us, with guitars and record albums on the walls and Guns N’ Roses playing in the background. Ironically, this is the only coffee shop in town that serves crumpets, the least rock’n’roll bakery item I can think of.

This coffee shop trend is really nothing new. The first English coffee house opened in Oxford in 1650, with London quickly catching up: by the early 18^th century it had more coffee houses than any other European city except Constantinople. Coffee houses were considered a more highbrow (and sober) option than rowdy taverns and the decline of our own pubs might well be one of the reasons for the popularity of coffee shops now. This trend didn’t last, however, partly due to the growing number of private clubs and the increasing popularity of tea-drinking.

Women weren’t particularly welcome in coffee houses and not in many private clubs either. [Judi Dench and Siȃn Phillips have just become the first women allowed to join the Garrick Club in London, although being two women among 1,500 men doesn’t sound like much of a treat to me.] Which is why modern coffee shops are so wonderful – everyone is welcome. I recently discovered a car-themed café and felt very happy there even though I am demonstrably not a man or a petrolhead. The barista was very friendly and, after an in-depth coffee chat (does the coffee go in the cup before or after the milk?), he made me a delicious coffee topped by the most exquisite latte art I have ever seen. And that is why we flock to these places – I wouldn’t get a frothy seahorse at home, would I?