Capitalist Culture and Coffee Criticisms via the Lens of an Ex-Starbucks Barista, Part 1

The interview below is part one of a conversation with my friend, ex-Starbucks barista Elizabeth Dalhou.

All right. We are live!

Hi, guys!

Hello. How's it going?

Good, good! How are you?

Doing all right!

Yeah? I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Yeah! Thanks for doing this—really appreciate it.

Yeah, of course!

So, I want to start first with your introduction to coffee. When did you start drinking coffee or immersing yourself in the coffee culture?

So, I started drinking coffee… I think it was 10th grade when I started drinking coffee, and I would just make it at home—literally like before school in the morning, like with the Keurig. And that was it, and I would drink it every morning, like I loved coffee. I still do, I still do like coffee. I don't drink it as much, but I still do. But yeah, 10th grade is when I started really.

Is that… do you think that's early?

Yeah, for sure.

Right.

Yeah.

I feel like for most people it's college.

Yeah.

Even later sometimes.

Mhmm.

But that seems to also be a going trend where younger people are getting frappuccinos and wanting to get whatever, caramel macchiatos.

Yeah.

And now it's become more of a routine or a trend…

Yeah.

Or just part of the social norms of youth, and people wanting to conform with their peers.

Yeah, for sure. I think that—I think coffee being made sweeter, you know? There are so many options of, like you said, the cappuccino and all that, like it appeals more to the younger crowd. Like growing up, I would always get a frappuccino, not the ones with coffee, but like, I'm still going to a coffee shop, you know? It's the whole experience.

I think with coffee it's also a routine, like a whole experience of making the coffee and going to whatever you do—it's a routine. So I think people get addicted to that more than… yes, you can get addicted to drinking coffee, right? But I think it's just having something to do in the mornings where it's like, "Oh, I can't wait to wake up and make my cup of coffee," if that makes sense.

Yeah. It's like a ritual.

Yeah! Exactly.

Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, 10th grade is really young. Really young.

Yeah. That's an interesting point that you make about it being sweeter.

Yeah.

I didn't think of that, but I guess in a way instead of a milkshake or a smoothie, it's a frappuccino or it's again, caramel macchiato or whatever syrup you add to it.

Yeah. It appeals to the younger crowd. So they're like, "Oh mom, can I get like a…" you know, and I feel like people don't think twice about it. And mom's like, "yeah, of course you can get a frappuccino." So it starts them off really young.

Right. Do you think that will have adverse effects on them growing up or did you notice anything about yourself?

No, I didn't. No, I mean, I think if they're drinking sweet coffees like every morning, yeah, for sure. That can have an impact on your health just because of the sugar.

Yeah.

But as far as caffeine, I don't really know how much that affects your brain health at such a young age. And I don't think one cup of coffee, like if you're drinking one cup of coffee in the morning at like 16, I don't think that that would really mess up your brain function or maybe give you a little bit of anxiety, but [laughs] but that's it. I think most kids honestly are on Adderall nowadays [both laughing], so I don't think coffee really would make that big of a difference.

Right. It seems sort of odd that you prescribe Ritalin.

Exactly! And Adderall, and everybody's on one of those things. So I don't think that coffee is looked at as like bad anymore.

Yeah. I think for the longest time there was a social… people frowned upon it.

For sure.

It was like a social faux pas.

Yeah.

But I guess that's changing now that people are kind of warming up to the fact that it's probably way less extreme.

Yeah, exactly! And other things in life.