An Academic Guide to Coffee Decision-Making in the Greater Lafayette Area

Source: Greyhouse Coffee & Supply Co.

I love coffee, and I am extra.

How “fun, free time” with friends turns into an expansive comparative analysis.

Courtney Bonness

I am not a pretentious coffee snob. Yes, the fact that I feel the need to defend myself against such perceptions does insinuate that I am, in fact, a coffee snob. I am not.

What I am is a barista with too much free time and a high tolerance to caffeine (a very dangerous combination).

My Wednesdays are typically full of mundane, college circumstances: I wake up at the last minute. I go to class. I come home and stare at my homework, but choose to go to the gym/make lunch/take a nap instead. I go to class again. I make dinner. I go to Bible study. I stare at my homework again. I shower. I fall asleep to the gentle hum of the neighboring apartment’s never-ending alcoholic escapades.

Sounds mundane, yes? I know, I just yawned myself. As a senior with lofty dreams and poorly established action steps to achieve such aspirations, I have contented myself with avoiding fear of the future by filling such mundane days with “intentional adventuring;” i.e. spending time with friends one-on-one, catching up on life, and exploring the nooks and crannies that I have become acquainted with the past three and a half years. Wednesday, September 26, was one such day of adventuring, and boy did it get technical.

My friend, Kayla Abramowski, and I are both community group leaders at Purdue Christian Campus House as well as baristas at Greyhouse Coffee Supply Co. Despite the clear overlap in our schedules and involvements, it had been quite some time since the two of us had sat down and truly talked about our lives; therefore, we agreed to spend an unexpected three hour break together muddling through the nuances of our mostly mundane lives.

In short, we knew we’d be grabbing coffee.

It began as a joke in the face of our indecision— “where would you like to grab coffee?” “I don’t know, where do you want to go?” “Ugh, you know I hate making decisions!” “Well you know we don’t have to decide. We could go to them all.” “Wait—” “Like yeah, we could do a whole comparative analysis or something.”

Game, set, match, adventure established. These two non-pretentious coffee snobs decided that we were fully qualified to create guidelines by which to effectively evaluate the various coffee shops in our area. Below is an articulation of our methods, conclusions, and how this originally, mindlessly humorous use of time became strangely, professionally relevant.

Methods

Kayla and I have both received espresso and coffee-tasting training through our employment at Greyhouse; therefore, we attempted to create criterium that both reflected our unique expertise as well as the general experience a typical coffee-consumer may have.

Bearing this in mind, we decided to order vanilla lattes at each of the four coffee shops visited, noting that vanilla lattes, generally, have a mildly sweet flavor that allow for the espresso to be differentiated more readily from other flavor notes. We decided that the coffee shops ought to be compared based on general ambiance, overall latte, espresso taste, texture, mug, and art.

We decided to collect only qualitative data in real-time; however, it is interesting to note that once the data was collected, I chose to quantify it for the sake of more numerative comparison. The math is explained in the corresponding infographic.

Speaking of infographics, I made one! Although this entire escapade is one large joke, including the infographic, the math articulated in said graphic is accurately calculated in correspondence with the methods outlined. I know, it’s a shocker, an English major can do math and stuff (wow).

Kayla and I ordered a vanilla latte at Greyhouse, Star City, Java Roaster, and Fuel. We made sure to drink water and eat some food between each coffee shop visitation in order to both alleviate some of the caffeine consumption as well as cleanse the palate. While drinking each latte, we filled out a table corresponding to the six criteria articulated above (see tabular image).

In short, we found that the only supplies necessary for such an analysis were: a blatant disregard for budgetary coffee allowances, a mean of transportation (we would have preferred an elephant parade, but alas, here we are stuck with broken cars that sometimes work), a pal who can deal with the over-caffeinated version of you, and data collection materials (notebook, pen, phone).

Conclusions

By quantifying our observations, Greyhouse received the highest cumulative score, followed closely by Star City. Kayla and I both acknowledge our bias towards Greyhouse products (being well-acquainted with the nuances of their drinks) as well as our inability to visit every coffee shop in the greater Lafayette, IN area (we did not visit Vienna, Cafe Literato, Sacred Grounds, or Starbucks). Therefore, the quantified results of this analysis are entirely inconclusive.

Despite the subjectivity and inaccuracy of our comparative conclusions, we were able to conclude the following:

There are several great coffee options in the greater Lafayette community. Grab a friend and get caffeinated.

Overall ambiance of a coffee shop can supplement a sub-par latte, thus affirming the notion that positive customer experience largely trumps product quality.

Life discussions happen over coffee. Every. Darn. Time.

When products are produced in an individualized manner (i.e. a handcraft), the quality is entirely dependent on the singular creator of the product. Therefore, our observations may have been stridently divergent if we had different baristas at each of the locations.

Professional Relevance

So Courtney, you think your crazy coffee adventures are professionally relevant? You think this is educational?

Why yes, ambiguous reader’s voice, yes I do.

First and foremost, education does not exist behind the ivory towers of academia. Education corresponds with experience and simply living life. I learned more about myself, my friend, and the establishment of a brand and product. As articulated above, the overall ambiance of a coffee shop led Kayla and I to make allowances for deficit in product. Therefore, as a writer and architect of experience, I learned that it is imperative for me to maintain a big-picture perspective and emphasis over nuanced details (although those details are important and do impact larger perception).

It is also imperative to note that the factors we analyzed did not exist in a vacuum. It is impossible for them to be mutually exclusive. The overall latte taste was impacted by the espresso flavor. General ambiance was affected by the mug. Nuanced factors have a symbiotic relationship in creating an overall experience, whether that experience is a professional one or a fun-coffee one.

In short, you can find caffeinated, and surprisingly educational, adventure in your neighborhood. So grab a friend, grab some coffee, and get observant!