Hello again everybody. It’s been a while since my last post, I know. Two things happened. First, we started busy season at the bookstore where I work, so that cut down on both my free time and my free energy. Second, I’ve been putting more energy into my poetry writing over the summer while it’s actually still nice enough out to go running around to readings every week.
This coffeehouse I actually found by accident while I was driving across the river into Camp Hill. It’s a fairly new place apparently, and it certainly looks new! I have honestly never seen a coffeehouse this clean and polished. It’s in a nice little plaza right off the highway. Not exactly my idea of bohemian, but I thought I’d give it a try anyhow.
It was as clean and polished on the inside as it was on the outside; there are even offices visible from the seating area. But the seating area is very comfortable, which made up for it. I must say I’m biased because sometimes I like that streamlined, modern design. The Feng Shui of it just has a way of setting me at ease. It seems like a place with a whole lot of potential, especially if they have music nights here; in fact it was odd just how much potential this little coffee shop seemed to have. It doesn’t have the atmosphere of a place that’s stuck in a west shore plaza.
The new house blend was the real takeaway from the experience though. It’s something I never had before called “California Gold.” It had this really odd-but-great flavor that was really memorable. There was a distinct fruitiness to it that I just couldn’t place in terms of specifics. I remember that citrus-spiciness well, and also the overall lightness of the blend.This one gets an ‘A’ for true originality.
All in all, this seems like the kind of place I’d hang out with before a day at the office, or where I would make some business plans while on the go. I will be back!
The snazzy outside…
Just inside…
Nice chairage…
the innovative houseblend…
Oh, I thought this would be a good time to let all my regular readers in on a secret plan that has been in the works for some time. I’m planning on branching out and starting a new blog that will combine coffee…and politics! I haven’t yet settled on a name for the new blog, but it will be an independently liberal sort of weblog, from a Progressive, Modernist perspective. Wait, what does that mean? Well, most liberal blogs seem to have a very new-left, 1960s, hippie outlook on life, focusing mostly on issues of social liberalism. Mine will be more reminiscent of old-fashioned, Roosevelt-style Progressivism, focusing on working-class issues and how science and new technologies are being used to solve the worst crises of our day. True progress in other words. Indeed, I believe that true progress must represent an evolution beyond ideology.
What does all this have to do with coffee? Well, think about it. During the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, when things like reason and empathy were being used to fight back against feudalism and fundamentalism, a lot of these ideas were formulated and discussed in the great salons and coffeehouses of Europe. Coffeehouses and intellectualism have gone together for well over 300 years now, so I figured that there will be no problem combining my coffeehouse journey with some revolutionary thought! After all, revolution still happens in coffeehouses every time there’s an open mic night, and some poet drops radical words on the gathered crowd.
Because of their link with the Enlightenment, coffeehouses have a radicalism that goes beyond left and right. Let’s face it; the cultural relativists on the left, as well as the libertarians and religious people on the right share one thing in common: a lack of reason. So let’s transcend the toxic memes together by embracing some true change. Let logic and love carry the day.
The Coffeehouse Journey 