Coffee and happiness

Kerckhoff Coffeehouse, UCLA

Occasionally I have the urge to post about something unrelated to coffee. But if there is a way to connect a post to coffee, I will. This post is not about making great coffee; it’s about happiness. It’s also about how some of our coffee-career trajectories and current trends in third-wave cafe design may be decreasing our happiness. 

I hope you will listen to one of the podcasts I link to in this post. I have never experienced so much wisdom packed into two hours. Without exaggeration, I think you may find either podcast life-changing. 

Back at my first cafe in the 90s, usually while caffeinated, my staff would often say “coffee makes you happy!” Caffeine can trigger elation, but to me the meaning of that phrase was a bit deeper, and had little to do with caffeine.

Like many people, I opened a coffee shop because I liked making coffee, and I enjoyed the community environment of a cafe. My first cafe was the center of town life in Amherst, Massachusetts. Not only did well over 1000 of the town’s 30,000 people come to the cafe each day, but nowhere in town was as vibrant, or had such an emotional place in townspeople’s lives. At the cafe, lifelong friends were made, PhD dissertations were written, and future spouses were met. I’m still in touch with dozens of people who worked at or frequented the cafe. At least ten strangers introduce themselves to me online each year to relate a memory of their first great cup of coffee or an experience at the cafe. I find it incredible that strangers routinely reach out to tell me about their experiences at a cafe 25—30 years ago. Several customers and a few staff went on to establish their own roasting companies, cafes, or green importing businesses.

When I was 14 years old, my friend Arash took me to Espresso Royale Cafe in Ann Arbor on a snowy February night. It was my first experience going to a coffeehouse, and it was a revelation. I felt like an adult, sipping an “Italian soda” among college kids late at night. I was happy. My first motivation in opening a cafe was not to serve delicious coffee; it was to provide others experiences like the one I had with Arash, and to cultivate a feeling of belonging and community. 

When I was in university at UCLA, there was an old-style coffeehouse on campus with stained glass windows, poetry night, people smoking in the corner, ratty old wooden furniture. Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here played at least once each night, and they served hideous, dark-roast, flavored coffee. (I always ordered tea or hot chocolate.) I spent almost every night there studying with friends, and the idea of having a welcoming “third place” became my obsession. Kerckhoff Coffeehouse was my happy place. 

When I left university, my career mission was to replicate that happy place for others. After a year and a 4,000-mile drive searching for the best place to put that cafe, I landed in Amherst, Massachusetts, and was certain that was the place to open the cafe. My subsequent cafes businesses each brought a feeling of enjoyment, satisfaction, and community, but in different ways from the first, and never quite as profoundly. As laptops replaced socializing, it became more challenging to cultivate a sense of community.

Roasting and consulting have brought satisfaction, but have never provided the level of enjoyment or happiness owning cafes did. I’ve always understood why in a fuzzy way, but now I’m sure why, because of a brilliant man named Arthur C. Brooks. 

Dr. Brooks has written eleven books, writes a column about the science of happiness in The Atlantic magazine, and teaches a course on happiness at Harvard Business School. He has made it his life’s mission to study happiness and translate its science and methodology to help others lead more fulfilling lives. 

Dr. Brooks claims the three pillars of happiness are satisfaction, enjoyment, and meaning. You need all three elements in relative balance to be happy. He emphasizes that pleasure is not the same as enjoyment, and happiness is not a feeling. (He likes to say happiness is not a feeling any more than the smell of dinner is dinner.) Dr. Brooks explains satisfaction requires struggle or work, and a pleasurable experience only provides enjoyment if it is shared with others and creates a memory. 

That last insight resonated with me; I’m an introvert, and often default to doing activities alone. Dr. Brooks confirmed something I suspected for many years: running cafes made me happier because that experience was shared with so many others, which made it enjoyable. I doubt so many people would write to me about a coffee experience 25 years ago if it weren’t for the community and shared enjoyment involved. Consulting and roasting provide some satisfaction, but not as much enjoyment, and for an introvert, the shared-experience-brings-enjoyment part can be challenging. 

Most of us entered the coffee industry as baristas. Our first job was making coffee, interacting with customers, and bonding with coworkers over teamwork during busy shifts. Being a barista can provide very high levels of enjoyment and satisfaction. For many, moving into sales, roasting, management, or marketing was a natural career move, and the barista job had been a mere stepping stone. But for some, as our coffee careers evolve, we may never replicate the enjoyment being a barista brought us. The online trend of complaining about work is self-destructive: we won’t get satisfaction, and are less likely to find meaning in our lives, without working hard. Hard work and struggle provide many under-appreciated non-financial benefits. 

I’ve never been thrilled with the trend toward austere, white, uncomfortable cafes focused solely on coffee. Such places may brew and serve lovely coffee, but they often lack the community vibe, comfort, connection and interpersonal stimulation that coffeehouses provided for centuries. Throw in customers sitting alone with their laptops, and cafes don’t promote happiness the way they once did. I don’t enjoy having coffee in such cafes much more than I do drinking coffee at home.

Arthur C. Brooks on The Drive with Peter Attia

https://peterattiamd.com/arthurbrooks/

Arthur C. Brooks on the Rich Roll Podcast: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTmi7z8zyPo

I hope you listen to one or both of the podcasts above, and I hope this post has given some food for thought. Comments always welcome.