I thought I was being sophisticated and smart. I thought Van Houtte was just a silly made-up brand, like Haagen-Daz. Something designed to sound upscale, but in actuality, a complete fiction.
I told myself, “I get it, I get it. Van Houtte sounds like Van Hot. And hot coffee is what I’m here for. Hot gas station coffee.”
With little success, I had been scanning the gas station convenience store for the hot coffee machine. The machine with the button you press that injects that coffee-esque liquid into your foam cup.
But things had changed since my last gas station coffee stop years ago. There were no foam cups. And there was no hot coffee machine either. Instead, a row of large, manual-pump, branded thermoses greeted the eye. Colombian Roast. French Vanilla. Decaf. This. That. The other.
And in the middle? A coffee-dispensing thermos with the label “Fair Trade and Organic Coffee.” At a gas station. Just down the aisle from the pre-wrapped breakfast burritos sitting beneath a heat lamp.
Was this a San Francisco moment? Organic, non-poverty coffee at a petrol pump? Next to the Hot Tornado Taquitos? Across from the windshield wiper fluid? Down the aisle from the rack bearing copies of USA Today?
As I looked for a cup, I realized that not everything had changed. 16 ounces was the smallest size available.
Supersize me. But only if it’s organic.
1 Comment
July 3, 2008 at 7:16 am
Not just a San Francisco moment…..even here in the mid-west you can stumble upon gas stations offering Fair Trade / Organic coffee. Of course the next step is this slow but steady evolution will be when there is a range of Fair Trade / Organic coffees on offer………