Five Watt Coffee / Lyndale
Cortado · ★★☆☆☆
Daniel J. Schwartz
Grabbed a cortado while working on my laptop. The milk was foamier than I prefer and the espresso came through pretty dark. Not my favorite combination, but I drank it.
What stuck with me more than the coffee was watching the barista say "Hi, how's it going" about 200 times during their shift. 99% of the time the customer says "Good, how are you?" and immediately moves to their order. I witnessed two hours of this. Eight hours of that routine takes real stamina.
After seeing this I'm trying to actually engage when baristas ask how I'm doing. They're putting in the work, least I can do is give them a real response.
Two stars for the coffee. Five stars for the reminder to be more present with people.
Sometimes a mediocre cortado teaches you something more valuable than a great one would have.