Michael Moynihan: Livin’ la vida mocha — when did the Great Coffee War start in Cork?

If you’re not familiar with the expression, allow me: it’s shorthand for that subject or topic which obsesses you to the extent that you often wonder about it when you have a few minutes to spare.

I believe it originates in the belief that most men are obsessed with the Roman Empire, a hilarious exaggeration. And not at all applicable to those among us who enjoy pointing out that the term decimated, strictly speaking, means the punishment imposed on Roman legions which involved killing one in ten, thereby making most modern usage incorrect unless it specifies that ten per cent of the (Can we move on? - ed).

Anyway. My Roman Empire revolves around a simple question.

When did the Great Coffee War take place in Cork?

There must have been some kind of watershed conflict about coffee in recent years, because I detect a very strong before and after sensation with much of the city’s coffee offering, and I use ‘very strong’ advisedly.

There are two distinctly different tastes.

One is strong and harsh with a lingering, unpleasant aftertaste. It’s coffee that can be deep, deep black and leaves a distinct brown ring around the cup, and its origins are often part of the ritual: how it’s ground, where it’s from, the exact proportions of its blending, all feed into the mystique.

Call it the Hipster Coffee Bean.

The other kind of coffee is the opposite in many ways: it has a smoother taste and seems browner rather than black before the milk goes in. Its point of origin is often no more specific than a country, while the manner of its creation is not described in any detail.

Forensic textual analysis will not be needed to work out your columnist’s preference: the latter, which we can call Coffee Regular for convenience.

Unfortunately, much of Cork has been conquered by the Hipster Coffee Bean (HCB). 

By my estimates, once you have set foot on the central island of the city your refuges from its oily power are few and far between. I would number the two Cafe Gustos, on Lapp’s Quay and Washington Street, perhaps Salt on the Monahan Road further out; most of the rest are serving the other kind.

This has not happened overnight. In the last couple of years the takeover has been happening across the city one espresso machine at a time. More than once I have been at home when my partner in life has come home from town and hung up her coat and sat down, expression woebegone, to announce the fall of another outpost.

“Remember that place down towards the GPO ... I went in there today and had a coffee. It was so strong that if I poured it into the tank of the car you’d get to Dublin on it.”

“Poison?”

“Poison.”

War map

At this point I usually go to the large map of Cork which covers much of the kitchen wall. I take down the little red flag which marks the location of the cafe just mentioned, and put that away. After a moment’s silence in memory of the lattes and Americanos enjoyed there I take out a little black flag and mark the cafe just mentioned.

Then I stand back and take in the picture as a whole.

Where once there were plenty of red flags, now the black ones are taking over. I sometimes feel a bit like Napoleon mapping the retreat from Moscow, but only if the coffee shops are being swallowed up by the Czar’s forces.

And if they spat out the coffee in disbelief at the very first sip.

Clearly, then, I missed the Great Coffee War. There must have been some kind of massed battle between baristas of various types on Patrick’s Street, with victory going to those fond of the diesel-flavoured coffee (or coffee-flavoured diesel). Think of some kind of Lord of the Rings-type confrontation, with the HCB regiment muttering about crema and single origin while pelting Jamaican Blue Mountain beans at their opponents.

The opposing side I characterise in my mind’s eye as bewildered normies, asking without irony if anyone wants milk in that.

The supremacy of the winning side is to be seen now in the array of outlets which serve this potent black soup, because when it comes to identifying those outlets there are usually a few giveaways.

Most places which use a wall-mounted menu — usually consisting of physical letters well-spaced from each other — serve the hard stuff. If the accompanying prices are written like this — 3.8, 4.0 — then you are also in the presence of HCB.

That is not to say that the centre of Cork is lost entirely to those who prefer Coffee Regular. There are other nooks and crannies here and there which will not poison you: Butler’s on Oliver Plunkett Street is a pleasant oasis. Many of our public houses eschew the pretentious in favour of a lightly refreshing cuppa.

There’s a contradiction or two here, of course. This column often sounds a trumpet for the local and independent against the overwhelming power of the faceless multinational. 

You could certainly make the argument that the growing power of the HCB strain can be interpreted as spiky independence, a flowering of resistance against homogeneity, a statement of defiance when it comes to the onslaught of conformity that threatens to overwhelm us at every turn.

All of this I acknowledge wholeheartedly. It’s just a pity it tastes so bad

This all became more noticeable on my recent visit to America, during which I spent time in both Washington DC and New York.

I had coffee in both cities, and in both I experienced Coffee Regular. From Willard’s Hotel near the White House to the branch of Dunkin’ around the corner on Broadway in Manhattan, the coffee was uniformly reliable. Granted, I visited nowhere achingly trendy, but I can attest to how regular the coffee was in both the US Capitol and the Union Square Barnes & Noble.

Perhaps the growing diversity in our coffee is a good sign for Irish society. I just wish I’d been on hand for the face-off, the Battle of the Four Courts in the Irish (Coffee) Civil War.

Then again, maybe the seeds of this conflict were sown long ago. Leafing through A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man you can find this classic from the two Dedaluses’ visit to Cork:

They had set out early in the morning from Newcombe’s coffee-house, where Mr Dedalus’s cup had rattled noisily against its saucer, and Stephen had tried to cover that shameful sign of his father’s drinking bout of the night before by moving his chair and coughing.

Perhaps the rattling of the cup had nothing to do with a hangover, however. Perhaps it had everything to do with Dedalus pere’s shock at the strength of the coffee.