It’s been four days since I shared my thoughts on how to adapt to COVID-19. Seems almost quaint given what’s transpired since. My current advice?
Let’s work this through.
Trust the experts. Deal with the inconveniences. Try not to go ape as you and your family suddenly are trying to work from home, keep up with school, and manage your children within the same living space. It sucks for all of us in ways big and small, but this suffering will end.
For the coffee lover, and particularly the café customer, this is really tough. You want to support your regular place, you want the company, you want the high quality coffee. It’s still possible to do that without taking needless risks.
- get it to go; a lot of cafés and restaurants, whether by choice or in keeping with government edict, are shifting exclusively to takeaway or delivery only, and even if they don’t you might be safest doing your business that way rather than having a seat
- order some beans from your favorite café or roaster’s website; if you don’t have a go-to place in mind and would like to support some cool independent roasteries, while discovering some interesting new tastes, Sprudge has a great guide ready for you
- buy gift certificates from your favorite shop, to use later
- order beans and gift certificates to share with friends
- when you do go into a café, now and later when some glimmer of normalcy returns, be exceedingly generous and exceedingly patient and exceedingly kind to their staff
I am going to be limiting exposure out of an abundance of caution for the time being, so I’ll be avoiding cafés. I’m trying to take a positive spin, it’s a chance to get better at making espresso, foaming milk and trying milk art. I brought home my office stash of Counter Culture singles so I can mix it up.
We’re all in this together. Be safe, friends.