Though the city has long been littered with Starbucks (I previously lived across the street from one location, which was around the corner from a second location less than 100 feet away), coffee shops have continued to open around NYC with ever-increasing speed over the last ten years.

In some ways, that’s been a boon for me, as I often do my best writing while holed up in one. I regularly head down to Fika Tower on 54th and 10th, which has a secret back garden and ample indoor skylit seating, a perfect spot for cranking out work.

It’s a bit corporate (though in a very Swedish way). But I can’t quite bring myself to stop at the far trendier hipster-hotspot Rex, which I pass along the way.

Looking back, I can pinpoint the exact moment when I reached my limit of coffee cool. Last year, I headed across the street from my office to Blue Bottle to buy an afternoon cup. On my way out the door, a colleague asked if I’d bring back one for him, too.

The place was completely empty; I was literally the only one there besides the barista. I ordered two coffees. He placed a single pour-over dripper on the rail.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I must have mis-ordered; I’d actually like two coffees.”

“Oh, I know,” he replied.

And then he proceeded to spend four minutes lovingly making a first cup, put it aside, and then made the second, for another four minutes, with equally rapt attention.

So I was a bit pleased to find this great rant in Bon Appetit‘s interview with the inimitable Anthony Bourdain:

There are few things I care about less than coffee. I have two big cups every morning: light and sweet, preferably in cardboard cup. Any bodega will do. I don’t want to wait for my coffee. I don’t want some man-bun, Mumford and Son motherfucker to get it for me. I like good coffee but I don’t want to wait for it, and I don’t want it with the cast of Friends. It’s a beverage; it’s not a lifestyle.

Indeed.