Sunday, January 11, 2004


de tocqueville comes alive: regional coffee culture, part xv

"i drink it just to be sociable."

and today finds another article discussing the coffee and café culture of small-town u.s.a.

note the groups: golfing buddies, men, drinking flavored drip coffees while they meet daily to discuss life and politics; "empty-nest" moms drinking espresso-based milk beverages, lattes and mochas.

the article doesn't seem to cover the teen/student population, but if they follow national trends, they're drinking vanilla lattes too.

one of the things de tocqueville noted early about americans was our propensity for "civil society," informal voluntary social groups.

recently it's been faddish (as in books such as "bowling alone") to argue that these associations -- bowling leagues, the elks, whatever -- are in decline and that this has some dire meaning for american democracy, besides leading to increased depression and the whole "prozac nation" thing.

but i am beginning to disagree after several years of scanning google for coffee culture info and contacting and being contacted by others via bccy, i think civil society is just shifting.

shifting back to coffee, to the coffeehouse or diner as the place americans create social networks and civil space.

further, as long-time readers of bccy and these regional coffee posts can attest, these coffee-based social networks are expanding in almost every area of the planet.

the global population seems spontaneously to be building starbucks civil societies, fueled by coffee, camaraderie, and often wireless internet access.

it's just an interesting point to consider. not that we here at bccy are very political -- beyond the world-price depression known as the coffee crisis.

but we have to note that there is currently discussion of immigration reform in the u.s.a. we ought to mention that this reform is aimed primarily it seems at mexicans who have braved the dangers of crossing the border.

who are these illegal immigrants? here in new york, at least, many appear to be from veracruz. that's right: many seem to be former coffee workers, unemployed and forced north by the crisis.

while we here in the u.s.a. debate how reliant our economy has become on them, and how to bring them into some kind of legal status, i feel it's important to note that if our policy addressed the coffee crisis in latin america more vigorously, it might be less of an issue.

the collapse of rural coffee-growing areas in mexico and latin america, the social dysfunction, the family separation, the fatalities at crossing, all that. . . .think about it!

as the loss of the coffee sector continues, it depresses the entire economy in coffee-producing regions, leading other areas to fail, and driving non-coffee workers north as well.

i think you can see where i'm going with this, so i needn't continue. except, of course, that as a new yorker, i think anyone with the chutzpah to ship themselves north in a boxcar and work like a dog in queens is the kind of person we want.

i say legalize 'em, get their kids here, put 'em school, and salute their belief in america and their amazing work ethic.

these people have put their lives on the line for a piece of the american dream and are slaving to get it in way that shames the whining, white conservative talking-heads on cable news: the indigenous mexican delivery guy as possibly the last great american patriot.

but politics is inevitably boring. what's interesting is the way richard donnelly's chinese-5-spice-infused candy, with its sweet star anise note, completely matches the sweetly spicy fragrance of gimme's platinum blonde espresso blend.

it's even better than the fennel bon-bon yesterday. . .for those too impatient to mail-order the blend, you can hop the l train to billburg and visit the new gimme location there!

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