Hello 2024

Don Senneville and Jim White

As we sit in the Creperia, we ponder life in 2024. There are several issues of importance to us that we need to address in the coming year. First and foremost is coffee in “to go” cups. We are fortunate to have sent an emissary to the COP28 Climate Conference in Dubai, UAE. She was tasked with discussing alternatives to paper cups, thereby saving part of the planet Earth. She reported that there was a jar of Nescafe instant coffee and 4 paper cups in her hotel room. Very suspicious. So she proceeded to the local “Dunkin Donuts of Dubai” and had a real dark latte coffee and a donut. We love globalization.

Now to our second concern, which is dealing with the mind numbing number of choices in the coffee world. Don has no problem with this as his coffee order never waivers: dark drip with tons of half ‘n’ half. Jim, on the other hand, considers all choices but always gets the same thing. There are over 87,000 choices of different drink choices at Starbucks (AI math?). Most sound like desserts: syrup in your morning latte, or soy in your mocha, or a drizzle of buttery caramel on top of your cappuccino. Really! Yikes! Can we get back to just Army coffee? “Cactus Jack drinks coffee black” ( Don). Why so many choices? Is it a false sense of prosperity, or as K. Marx said over his morning state-approved coffee, “Capitalism breeds excess”. Carefree and Caffeinated.

So back to our local all American coffee row where life has fewer coffee choices, but more fun and better coffee. Don reports that in Sedona there are only half as many coffee shops as we have, but they do have a plethora of Starbucks and a turquoise McDonalds. Even after coffee in Ecuador, Mexico, Santa Fe, Sedona, Lake Bartlett, Dubai, and Flagstaff, we still return and prefer to drink our local brews in 2024. Next time we will explore the question, “Should you order a smoothie in a coffee shop?” As always we hope to see you in the home grown coffee dens of Carefree and Cave Creek. Please write us at The CUP, [email protected]

** This was the impassioned plea at the Climate Conference in Dubai last month…A Rap…
A Paper v China Poem
Don leaves with a paper cup to go
Jim says whoa, go slow.
Don says, “got to go”.
China stays, paper leaves, but returns for more
Jim is there, still…Dons had his fill.
Coffee to go – oh, no! It must be drunk slow-ly.
No more paper pl-ease.
It ruins the taste and creates the waste!