Mocha the Coffee Shop
Because in addition to being a legal trainee, I am also a journalist, I need to devote this weekend toward writing some articles and doing extra legal research. My trips to Mocha, the coffee shop (“coffees and conversations”), usually suck. It’s crowded. It takes 30 minutes to get a cup of coffee if a waiter even comes to your table. But I was awake early today, and I ventured to Mocha hoping to find free tables.
So here I am at Mocha. It’s not crowded on this early Sunday afternoon. It took a long time for my ordered coffee to arrive at my table, but… The coffee, I am overwhelmed with joy to report, is better than Starbucks. I have always found Starbucks to be mediocre coffee, but in law school it became my standard cup. Today I drank some Malabar Monsoon coffee. The Malabar Coast is the Indian coast from Goa south to the extreme southern tip of India: in the modern state of Kerala. Mocha’s menu reports that European sailing vessels would bring coffee from the Malabar Coast to Europe, and the coffee beans would absorb the monsoon air on the way back to Europe, in the process acquiring unique flavor. The Mocha menu says that although there are no more sailing vessels, the coffee beans are aged in a way to give it a similar flavor, and this was delicious coffee and only cost $1 for a big mug. I only wish my stomach could handle cup after cup.
And this is India, and I can never get the disparity of life out of my mind. So when I read this on the menu, it strikes me as stupid: “There are only two refuges from the miseries of life – coffee and music.”
Mocha has the atmosphere of an old living room in a very old, very old-world house. The antique furniture – that the menu assures me was purchased from flea markets around the country and then “painstakingly” restored – is also for sale. The lights are low, and the music is sometimes too loud. Played has been some big beat European electronic dance music. Also played has been a healthy dose of U.S. hip hop. I even heard my hometown boy Chingy. I heard “Welcome to Atlanta where the players play… and the parties don’t stop until 8 in the morning.” Now playing is the stripper song “My Humps” by the Black-Eyed Peas. On the wall is a small reproduction of the Caillebotte painting, La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie, that in real life hangs at the Chicago Institute of Art, and the people in the original are life size. The Place de l’Europe, by the way, is in Paris, and this is a painting of Paris during the Belle Epoque.
So here I am at Mocha. It’s not crowded on this early Sunday afternoon. It took a long time for my ordered coffee to arrive at my table, but… The coffee, I am overwhelmed with joy to report, is better than Starbucks. I have always found Starbucks to be mediocre coffee, but in law school it became my standard cup. Today I drank some Malabar Monsoon coffee. The Malabar Coast is the Indian coast from Goa south to the extreme southern tip of India: in the modern state of Kerala. Mocha’s menu reports that European sailing vessels would bring coffee from the Malabar Coast to Europe, and the coffee beans would absorb the monsoon air on the way back to Europe, in the process acquiring unique flavor. The Mocha menu says that although there are no more sailing vessels, the coffee beans are aged in a way to give it a similar flavor, and this was delicious coffee and only cost $1 for a big mug. I only wish my stomach could handle cup after cup.
And this is India, and I can never get the disparity of life out of my mind. So when I read this on the menu, it strikes me as stupid: “There are only two refuges from the miseries of life – coffee and music.”
Mocha has the atmosphere of an old living room in a very old, very old-world house. The antique furniture – that the menu assures me was purchased from flea markets around the country and then “painstakingly” restored – is also for sale. The lights are low, and the music is sometimes too loud. Played has been some big beat European electronic dance music. Also played has been a healthy dose of U.S. hip hop. I even heard my hometown boy Chingy. I heard “Welcome to Atlanta where the players play… and the parties don’t stop until 8 in the morning.” Now playing is the stripper song “My Humps” by the Black-Eyed Peas. On the wall is a small reproduction of the Caillebotte painting, La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie, that in real life hangs at the Chicago Institute of Art, and the people in the original are life size. The Place de l’Europe, by the way, is in Paris, and this is a painting of Paris during the Belle Epoque.
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