Re:The case for bad coffee (2015)
by codefreeordie on Monday July 18, 2022 @02:23AM
(#32135334)
The smaller "third wave coffee" shops generally have a liberal bent to them -- largely because the movement was born in Portland and Seattle. You are much more likely to see an "ACAB" sticker, a rainbow flag, or other left-virtue device on display than anything on the other side of the spectrum.
Starbucks may be anti-union, but they have frequently taken public stances of a liberal variety (particularly around visible issues like LGBT activism, and occasionally on guns) which has left those who felt alienated as a ready market for coffee without the moralizing (or coffee with their sort of moralizing)
I often try to find a mainstream trend in the other direction to compare it to, but there are so few mainstream consumer categories dominated by the right, mostly due to demographics.
Coffee shops definitely have a vaguely liberal vibe to them.
Otherwise, though -- it is kinda funny that there's apparently a left-leaning association for coffee that they feel the need to push back on. Like coffee is kind of a ubiquitous thing that people consume to help them concentrate at their bland corporate jobs.
And the story behind sourcing it is... something that left leaning people are often not super psyched about. I guess that leads to the whole fair trade coffee thing, which... maybe that could be though of as left-leaning?
But whatever, the giant union-busting corporation Starbucks is sometimes assumes to be left-leaning, so what can you do, right?