Coffee with Boris and Natasha

[valis2]

While I was in WI, I went to a coffee shop with my very dear friend. There are two coffee shops in the little town next to the township where her store is. One is well-established, in the heart of downtown, and it has a lot of good food. The other? Has character.

It's in an old house. It used to be in half the house, but recently the owner tore out the walls and now the coffee shop is the entire first floor. The kitchen is still the same size, but the seating area has more than doubled.

We've had some giggles there before--most notably a geeky guy on a computer who would not stop talking to us about his internet wheelings and dealings. (Best moment? When he called a company using his laptop, and had to keep repeating his name and what he was selling, even though this was supposedly a longtime customer of his.)

Then we happened to talk to the owner during the renovations. He revealed that he'd had a head injury, and had retired early from his former job in finance, and now owned the coffee shop.

We decided to go there for coffee last week, and when we came in, the owner was actually at the counter, which has never happened before. He asks us for our order. I ordered chai, and my friend decided on an Arnold Palmer. He did not seem to understand what that was, so my friend explained it to him, and he combined tea and half of a bottle of Calypso Lemonade, which is made by a WI-based company and is extremely strong. I'm not certain that it would have made a nice Arnold Palmer, but then again, I'm not into Arnold Palmers, so I don't really know.

While he was taking our orders, he kept up a steady stream of patter. But it was rather unusual patter. He would hint that we were troublemakers, for example, and that "you have to watch out for them," but it was...somehow disconnected. It seemed off. Usually a salesperson will start off with the patter, and use a couple lines, and then get straight into business. He seemed to want to stay in patter mode for a lot longer, and it was rather like playing ping-pong with a cat--I had no idea where any of his verbal volleys were going.

When I was paying, I handed him a twenty, and he said that everyone had paid him with a twenty that day, and he had no change left and needed to go to the bank. I immediately checked my pocket--I regularly carry a lot of small bills--and put together forty dollars in singles, fives, and tens. I handed the stack to him, and he had to separate it into two piles of twenty, and then hand me two twenties after visually confirming each pile.

My friend and I sat down and chatted about the usual things, and there was another guy in the same room, reading the paper. At one point the owner started telling the guy that he was the Wizard of Oz. The guy misheard him and thought he said the Wizard of Odd. The owner corrected him, but even after everyone knew that he was saying the Wizard of Oz, it never really did make sense. The owner insisted that he was going to refer to the guy as "the Wizard" from now on, and I can only imagine what the guy thought of that.

As we were leaving, my friend decided she wanted a hot drink to go. So we traipsed up to the counter and she tried to look over the menu. Notice I say "tried"--it's rather difficult, you see, because he keeps commenting. Also, he was trying to pour coffee beans from a thirty-pound bag into a one-pound bag, with the help of an assistant. It was a bizarre operation to watch; the assistant didn't seem to understand the physics involved, and the owner was nattering away as he tried to adjust the bags.

My friend was still deliberating, and then the owner pulled out the big guns. He asked her if she wanted Boris or Natasha.

Now, my hearing is pretty suspect, so I thought he said bonus at first. Eventually I realized that he was talking about Boris from Rocky & Bullwinkle. Anyway, Boris drinks are short, dark and ugly, while Natasha drinks are tall and light. An example of a Boris drink would be espresso (which he pronounced "ex-presso," by the way), while an example of a Natasha drink would be an iced tea.

Now, from the comfort of my computer desk, I see that it's a way of trying to help indecisive customers narrow down their beverage choices. At the time, though, I was mystified.

My friend explained that she wanted a latte with a shot of hazelnut. He started talking about some sort of "dry" cappuccino, she said, "Sure, I'll try it." She is rather adventurous, you see.

He was still rambling about Boris, and explaining how if she drank a certain kind of espresso, she'd be buzzing around for the rest of the afternoon. All of this was interspersed with odd comments about Boris and Natasha drinks.

At this point I was uncertain if:

a) her drink would end up as a triple espresso
b) her drink would actually be made
c) her drink would be palatable
d) her drink would contain any hazelnut at all
e) the Boris and Natasha concepts were actually helping his business
f) he should really be ringing up sales.

So he handed her a cup which contains a tiny bit of espresso in the bottom, and a ton of foam, and he wanted her to try it. Well, honestly, she wanted a latte, not an espresso. So she tried it, but of course it wasn't really what she was looking for. He kept saying that if it wasn't what she wanted then he'll add milk to it.

So she asked for the milk to be added, and he added it. She also mentioned while he was pouring the milk in that the coffee didn't taste like hazelnut at all. He explained that he added the hazelnut flavoring to the milk instead, in order to get a more uniform hazelnut taste, and goes into this long spiel about how offputting it is to drink a hazelnut drink and have all of the flavoring sit on the bottom.

But he still lost me at the first part of this scenario, where he had her drink the espresso. I mean, it's like ordering a cake, and having the waiter bring out the flour and let the customer sample it. I mean, what's the point?

Fortunately, my friend said that it was one of the best lattes she's ever had, so apparently there's hope after all.

I have to leave you with this image from his brochure:



What does this convey about his coffee, exactly? That one would enjoy it most by pouring it into the grass?

Comments

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Yes, it took a lot longer than Starbucks, but it was a helluva lot more interesting. ;)

Jungle Jim's was really amazing. I forgot to talk about how great their produce section is--they have passionfruit, for example, and yucca root, and I could go on and on about it. I'm sad that they're a four-hour ride away.

I'm almost thinking about taking a trip there just for the groceries. Sad, isn't it?

[leni-jess.livejournal.com]

Yep. But I know the feeling.