When I first came to Emerson, I made two promises: One to my sister, that I wouldn’t grow a man-bun (it becomes more and more tempting each day), and the other to myself, that I wouldn’t become one of those zombified coffee drinkers. Yet here I am, a little over a year-and-a-half later, and I’m unashamed to admit that I’ve betrayed myself. 

Coffee has become one of the cornerstones of my life.

I can’t go a day without it. I’m obsessed. A daily cup (or two, or three) keeps me honest, keeps me moving, and gives me something to look forward to before my 8 a.m. class. I would compare my relationship with coffee to that of a passionate, Brontë-esque love, of someone I would move heaven and earth and the underworld to get to, of someone I would yearn for on the windy moors. Call me Heathcliff, for I’ve found my Catherine, and her name is “medium light roast, room for whole milk.” 

However, I’m afraid my relationship with coffee shops is far more ambivalent—I’ve never been able to stick to one consistently. It isn’t that these shops are bad per se, but rather that they’re simply not worth it. When I go to pay north of $4 for a cup of coffee that then becomes a $5.50 cup of coffee after tax and a large tip, I expect greatness. And it’s a greatness I rarely get.

Don’t get me started on lattes either, which are somehow even more expensive than brewed coffee—if there’s barely any espresso, then where is all that money going anyways? Is there a small Eastern European man in the back milking a magical dairy cow? Is the milkman on retainer? Is the milk infused with gold? 

I don’t rant to be ignorant, and I’m certainly not a miser. I understand, in a post-pandemic world, that gross margins for these specialty shops are lower than ever, and I especially understand how climate change has adversely affected harvests and levels of export. Still, Emerson students, I must ask, how can we stand for this when the ideal coffee shop is resting right under our noses? It isn’t a French pop-up on Newbury offering brûléed sugar atop their micro-cappuccinos, and it certainly isn’t one of those joints offering “drip coffee” and claiming it to be radically different from the stuff brewed in your Mr. Coffee. Its classiness rests in precedence, and its appeal comes from workman-like steadiness.

I’m referring to Dining Hall coffee.

You know it, I know it, and that weird kid living down the hall knows it too. Nowadays, when I need a pick-me-up, I practically run to those slick black jugs resting so perfectly by the cereal station. Maybe you’ve scoffed at them, or maybe you’ve made a wisecrack about the coffee in this place “stinking” or “tasting burnt.” I know I have, and looking back on it, my insolence fills me with so much shame that hot tears of rage burst from my bitter eyes.

You see, we’re spoiled. We’ve been coddled for too long with fanciful visions of magical beans and vanilla syrups and special frothed milks. But coffee isn’t about that, and it certainly isn’t about making a grand impression—it’s about building habits. My love for the coffee in the Emerson Dining Hall, and the very reason I’m so adamant about defending it, is because it represents something greater than all of us, something we’re at risk of losing if we continue down the roads we’ve been so blindly traveling upon. After all, as of last year, the number of American adults who drank coffee was at a twenty-year high. 

Coffee isn’t just a drink, but a national pastime, a constant in our offices and classrooms and living rooms and dining rooms and dens. My dad brews a pot every morning, and he has since I can remember. Coffee provides a community of safety and routine and warmth, one that exorbitant pricing is slowly taking from us.

And so I turn to the humble Dining Hall. Many of my favorite memories at this school have taken place amongst its napkin dispensers and pepper shakers; many of my best essays were written in its grungy booths. I can’t count how many times I’ve had long conversations in the salad line, conversations I certainly wouldn’t have had otherwise. Our Dining Hall is the very catalyst for so much daily connection and it therefore makes perfect sense that its coffee feels so right, if not entirely earth-shattering. 

Fancy coffee shops and chains have fooled me for too long. I was taught to believe that coffee needed to evolve, grow, impress me and blow my mind. No more. Joe-drinkers of Emerson, I ask you to stand with me and look around. What are you searching for? If it’s energy, shut your laptop and drink a Monster. If it’s trendiness, search through countless lists of the most innovative boutique roasters. If it’s an excuse to burn money, go to Tatte.

If it’s coffee, walk outside and locate the harshly-lit windows between Walker Building and 2B Alley. Then enter.

Congrats. You’ve achieved nirvana, and you were paying for it this entire time.