Mmm, a tall cup of steaming hot coffee on a hot, humid, sweltering day

Among the bourgeoisie – with whom I’m currently trying to blend my white ass – coffee bars are popular. I’m staying in this upscale suburb this week, and there are three coffee chains at this major road intersection outside my building. Mocha, Café Coffee Day (CCD), and Barista.

Mumbai is hot and humid, and I’m going to propose two theories that partly explain why these bourgeois Mumbaikers like to drink coffee in this climate.

1.) Starbucks is of course phenomenally popular in the U.S. and U.K. People all over the world, especially places populated by lots of people who have been to the U.S. and U.K. or have family and friends there (i.e. India, from which comes the India Diaspora), like to do as those Anglo-Saxons do. And for whatever reasons Starbucks is popular among the bourgeoisie of the U.S. and U.K., these coffee chains are popular among the bourgeoisie of Mumbai. Here I could say something about middle-class aspirations being the great cultural leveler, instead of blaming cultural leveling on U.S. cultural imperialism, but I won’t – any theory could be correct.

2.) They drank coffee on Friends, and they talked while they drank their coffee. Because the Friends were cool, and they hung around and drank coffee, so did lots of others in the U.S. and the U.K. For bourgeoisie with extra money and free time (mind you, this free time and extra money has probably been earned through work, not necessarily gifted or inherited), coffee and conversation is a pretty fun way to spend time. I saw lots of Indians doing this. Supposedly, coffee, because it has a way of making people feel smarter and more talkative, had a great, positive affect on the thinkers of the Enlightenment who used to pour over new ideas in London coffee shops. And, although maybe these Mumbai bourgeois coffee chains generally are not hosting thinkers with such lofty ideas, they are really pushing the coffee and conversations concept. Mocha’s slogan: “Coffee and Conversation.” CCD’s slogan: “A lot can happen over a cup of coffee.” This screams to me: “Come be like the Friends, even if you don’t know the show because know it or not, those Friends were onto something fun, and if you’re bourgeois, you’ll probably like it too: drink and chat” My Mumbai friend raves about how awesome Friends is. I like Friends too, but not Bryan Adams.

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