Getting my fix of coffee shop addiction

A café in Bordeaux, where I was hanging out last month
Latte in hand, basking on a café terrasse in the Nordic sun, striking a balance between watching and ignoring fellow coffee-drinkers I mused on why coffee tastes better on a terrasse in public to at home. A professional coffee machine is a recent addition to our household, yet still it's not a patch with hanging out in cafés.

A very tedious job I once held was endurable thanks to a completely authentic Italian-run café opposite where I would replenish all my reserves. Had the café ever shut down I would have quite simply have had to leave my job immediately and cite my reasons for doing so.

Years of being a student nurtured a full-blown coffee addiction. This has developed over the years to become, rather more specifically, a café addiction. It's the venues as much as the toxin that I need to get my fix of. I am, I confess, a coffee voyeur...or is it coffee exhibitionist?

There is, I feel, a sort of complicit sorority within those in a café. And a subtle one at that- too overt and it is ruined. Should a discrete half smile at another become a full-blown gurning contest then the people in white coats are not far off. Likewise, everyone half attends to others' conversations in cafés but very few interject. All this is the fine line between companionship and creating and atmosphere and trampling over others' toes. This delicate balance is seductive: tuning in and out of other's conversations and taking in the view, there exists a sort of solidarity built out of roasted coffee beans and half-baked dreams.