Reading The Tea Leaves

Sorry for the lack of posting, folks. It's been a busy week in a strange sort of way. I'll hopefully have a new Berlin post up tomorrow.

In the meantime, I've gotten into surprisingly intense arguments with people here when I bring up that a new coffee machine has been invented that may replace espresso machines because it has the ability to produce a single cup of brewed coffee. Europeans really, really hate this idea.

'What's wrong with espresso?' they say. When I tell them that it's a scientific fact that brewed coffee produces more flavour from the bean, they grow extremely agitated. I'm talking about actual yelling matches I've had, back and forth, as they deliriously defend espresso against this new contraption, telling me that I've been brainwashed by Starbucks. 'So I guess the Italians have had coffee wrong for years then', said one guy smarmily.

It's been like this with every person I've brought it up with.

I'm quite certain this is symbolic of a larger theme in how Europeans view North America, but I'll leave that up to the reader to decipher.