Some like it Hot

How do you like your coffee? The potential for innuendo is huge: sweet, hot, strong, black, full-bodied… There isn’t really one you could use that hasn’t already been done. It wasn’t the seductive, aromatic smell of coffee that attracted my attention; it was the mention of something free. I love getting things for nothing, though I am often wary of a catch. Carte Noire are promoting their coffee by taking a pop up café around the country and giving away coffees for free. The gimmick is that you get to order your coffee and you get to order the ‘seductive server’ who brings it to you. I thought it would be an amusing way to pass a bit of my lunch break (especially as it had been a quite day in the office for me. Silent in fact). It is much more difficult to be amused by these kind of things on your own, much more fun when you have someone to laugh with than when you are sitting smiling alone. I tried to remember to relax my shoulders, to not look awkward sitting there alone. No one thinks confident people are lonely people.

It is quite a fun campaign. The room was black and purple and was a bit more like a cheap boudoir-bar than a café, and you order your coffee (choice of 4) and your waiter (also choice of 4) on an ipad screen. I would have liked it if they had tried to match your coffee with a waiter for you: so that the waiter either looked like the coffee (expresso brought to you by someone short and black) or embodied its characteristics (cappuccino served by someone a little frothy and superficial). Instead you get to choose from Mr Continental, Mr Romantic, Mr Confident or Mr Cool (who do the men order off?). I went for Cool, and then regretted it when Romantic (‘sweet and sensitive’) came to check if I was ok. There seemed to be a problem with the ipad ordering that Mr Romantic had to remind Mr Cool that I had ordered him to bring me my order. And it made me feel even more awkward. As did the obligatory flirting. The coffee itself was less interesting than the experience, and with much more sugar than I would have added: I don’t like it too sweet.