Beth Morey, Writer + Artist

I have become something of a coffee snob, and my new drink of choice to practice said snobbery over is the extra-dry cappuccino. And by extra-dry, I mean that I want my cup to have two shots of espresso topped by mounds of glorious foam. I love to eat the foam with a spoon and then sip up the shots at the end, which is apparently the Italian style of cappuccino consumption, or so one of my fellow baristas has told me.

Some coffee shops, however, refuse to make an adequate cappuccino, even with explicit instructions. Take today, for example. I went to a local coffee shop to meet with a friend, and I decided to have a cappuccino. After explaining what I meant by "extra-dry" to the barista, I happily browsed through their selection of loose teas until my drink was ready. The beverage she served diffused my happiness. Instead of an extra-dry cappuccino, she made me a latte. Not that a latte is bad, necessarily, but if I had wanted one, I would have ordered one. The photo in this post is actually of the sub-par cappuccino, and as you can see, I have already eaten most of the foam. Sigh.

This is not the first time such a thing has happened to me. Why don't some places understand that a cappuccino is more foam than coffee? Starbucks knows how to make a good cappuccino, and the coffee shop where I work does as well. But now two other major coffee shops in this town have failed the cappuccino test, and some of them more than once. Puah, I say (which is apparently Italian for "pooh"). Puah, indeed.