For those of you who don’t know yet

The Coffee Complex was founded after noticing how certain demographics gravitate to particular coffee orders. You may want to believe a person’s coffee order is arbitrary. But there are strong correlations between the type of person you are and the type of coffee you order, just like there are correlations between certain types of people and their choice of clothes or cars. There are outliers, of course. But have you ever seen a tradie order oat milk short mac with stevia? That’s what I thought.

But first, a warning

As a Life’s a Batch reader, I’m sure you’re not politically sensitive. But just in case you are here’s a caveat. I use ‘he’ and ‘she’ as an indefinite pronoun, meaning the description applies to everyone on the gender spectrum. Also, the personas are fiction (sort of). And not meant to be taken too seriously.

The Kenyan Batch Brew

After working as a barista in a speciality coffee shop, he decided to create a blog called Life’s a Batch, a blog that makes fun of innocent customers who are merely trying to enjoy a tasty ¾ topped up almond latte with 1 ¼ equals in a takeaway cup. Yes, he thought he was very funny. But unfortunately, nobody else did.

So he decided to give up the dream of becoming a world-famous humourist and searched what the next coolest job he could do. And that’s how he became a multi-disciplinary designer.

(That brings us to now)

He’s not a multi-disciplinary designer in the actual sense of the term. He’s really a graduate designer who likes to draw minimal line pictures on different Creative Adobe programs and once started a fashion label. The label didn’t last long, maybe because the only item was a white t-shirt hand-made from rare bamboo cotton in Japan which sold for $412.56.

While he designs reports (and the odd logo) for big corporates, he tells people he’s a Creative. Or Artist. He recently created a design concept for a client which consisted of two squiggly lines on a white background.

“And the lines represent your brand’s forward-thinking,” he said to the client.

“How?” the client said.

“Because, um, the lines aren’t entirely straight which means you bend with the times. You’re progressive,” he said.

“Yes, that is true,” the client said. “We do bend with the times. We are progressive.”

Here, at work, he walks down to the local hipster cafe and orders filter coffee. “A batch, please,” he mumbles.

“What you been up to?” the barista says.

“Chillin,” he says, even though he currently has heart palpitations because he has, like, worked two 9.5 hour days in a row. Not only that, a client told him his work wasn’t good enough. And while he held a cool facade, he took the comment very personally. He does that—takes things personally.

He’s not even sure if he likes filter coffee, just as he’s not sure if he likes expensive natural wine. But he drinks the stuff anyway. Perhaps, if he was confident enough in himself, he’d drink a hot chocolate instead.

He works only four days a week because he needs time for other creative pursuits, like taking MDMA while DJing at cool events on weekends. But no one knows about the events. The organisers don’t advertise.

They don’t advertise because the events are super exclusive and underground, which is code for they don’t have enough money to rent out a proper event space, so they run the event in an abandoned janitors closet in a side alley in the city. So really, only 4 people can fit in the room.

Still, they are wild nights, these events. He usually finds himself riding home on his fixie drinking a beer called Raspberry infused New England Indian Pale Ale Sour which has been made from the yeast of a Stefan Sagmeister’s pubes. (What? You don’t you know who he is? He’s only the coolest designer in the world. Geeze.) And there, on the bike, drinking Sagmeisterr’s yeast, he ripped his exorbitantly expensive vintage jeans.

He said he didn’t mind the rip, dusting off the dirt. But he did mind. He stayed in a sour mood for over a month. After all, you can only find those jeans in a boutique in Brooklyn. Never mind. He has a friend living in Brooklyn who can hook him up.

Not that he likes to brag, but he’s also a photographer. But he only uses old film cameras, the ones which create more grain in the photo than a wheat field in September. Occasionally, these photos get uploaded to his Instagram which is—at the moment—a feed of black and white photos of stairs and concrete plinths (it’s an architecture thing).

But occasionally, he uploads photos of friends doing banal chores, like putting the washing out on the line, or washing dishes in an old 60s kitchen. He also writes a caption that exactly explains the photograph. For example, he recently uploaded a photo of a friend Jeremiah drinking coffee. And he wrote under the photo, “Jeremiah drinking coffee,” as if the viewer needed clarification because the image was so obscured by all that grain.

While he’s on Instagram A LOT, he only posts when he feels like it. In fact, he only ever does stuff when he feels like it. He has quite the air of indifference, which is why his peers may think he’s a pretty cool dude and, like, super independent. But his mother knows better—because he still lives with his mother.

You see, while he’s known among the local scene as a trendy dude, he sometimes wishes he could run away to some remote country. There, he would find a full moon party and dance half-naked to the bongo drums. Perhaps, he would even shout at the top of his lungs during the chorus of Buffalo Soldier by Bob Marley. And then he would roll around in the dirt.

Ahhh, freedom, he says to himself, drinking his batch brew. The freedom of being yourself.