I was working at a cafe in Bondi called Porch and Parlour. The sun was still low, though the morning was already balmy. And I watched from the machine the incandescent light illuminate the bay, the opaque ocean turning cyan and clear, and not long after the arrival of what seemed the entire population of greater western Sydney. Car bars quickly filled. Hordes of swimmers walked over the hills like bronzed pilgrims. Buses did loops, stopping before the cafe to drop off another raft. The inundation had begun, the line of people out the door, which would’ve been fine had everyone ordered a cappuccino with one.

The coffee menu had seven types or styles of coffee: flat white, latte, and so on. A trite for an experienced barista to wrap her head around. The complications only started, and for the most part ended, with the modifications: the slight and very time-consuming changes from the original.

A customer could specify, say, the strength of the coffee from a quarter of a shot of decaf to three and a half of the single origin. Or to anyone, or sometimes a mix, of six types of milk. On top of that, we offered different sweeteners and sized cups and 9 blends of tea from a boutique in Byron, as well as matcha and chai lattes.

Coffee alone, we were threatened with upwards of 1680 combinations of coffees which, as a conservative estimation, doesn’t include whether a customer wanted the cup to be filled to a specific fraction, like three quarters or seven eighths or, even, sixth eights.

Paper spewed out of the docket machine, the trail of orders snaking from the bench to the floor. Every now and then, to stretch my neck, I’d look up to see someone order a coffee at the till and hear the consequent whir sound of the machine birthing another docket. The length of the whirring sound, I discovered, was a sonic delineation of how elaborate the order was, the number of modifications.

The sound that accompanied a tradie ordering a flat white was heavenly brief, for example, but the whir that went with a group of young women in activewear and push-up bras felt perennial.

The psychology of Chinese torture is that victims are driven frantic to the point of insanity because of prolonged restraint under galling conditions: the constant drops of water or, in a baristas’ case, the unrelenting sound of a docket feeder.

The women’s order was so long the docket had to be folded three times to keep the paper— which, if at full extension, spilt off the bench—from falling.

While labouring over the six involved coffees, one of the women poked her head over the coffee machine, prying. “Just wondering how far away our coffees are?” she said. “We’ve been waiting 10 minutes,”

I looked down at the 20-odd dockets. (Each docket had, on average, three coffees). Then I scanned the 40 people in the cafe. One thing that’s drummed into a barista is ‘the customer is always right,’ even though that maxim is almost always wrong. So, as a conscientious worker, I swallowed the itch to defy.

“So sorry for the wait. We’re making it now,” I said to which she scoffed and then waited in the middle of the pass, otherwise known as the main thoroughfare for staff to collect and run out coffees.

To avoid a scene where a waiter accidentally spills coffee on the woman, because she is in the way, I said, “Sorry, do you mind just waiting here,” I pointed behind the coffee machine. “We wouldn’t want to spill any coffee on you.”

She obliged but didn’t return my smile. Actually, she gave a cold stare.

“So,” I said, wanting to ease the tension. “What you up to today?”

“Beach,” she shrugged.

Why are in such a bloody hurry then? I thought.

After five more minutes of relentless milk steaming and docket whirring, I finished the group of women’s coffees. I sighed, relieved of the woman’s pedantic monitoring, before moving on to the next docket. And I would have continued to move onto the docket after that had the woman not returned, complaining that her coffee—a decaf long black with rice milk foam on top and an equal—was full to the cardboard rim, not three quarters topped up.”

“Three quarters?” I said. “The docket doesn’t say three quarters.”

“Well, I’m sure I asked. I like it a little stronger,” she said. We then stood staring at each other for a long time.

“What?” I said. “You want me to make it again?”

“Is that okay?”

Do you know how hard and wasteful it is to steam rice milk foam? I thought.

To get nicely steamed milk, the steam wand has to force air into the milk. As the milk heats, the proteins attach to the air particles. The proteins are attracted to fat, allowing a stable mixture in foam, which is why full cream milk steams to a silky texture and why rice milk steams to gurgled water. (The scoopable foam from rice milk is merely a bunch of fleeting bubbles.) After steaming the milk, I tipped the bubbles into her three-quarters topped up coffee.

I then upended the rest of the five-dollars-a-litre milk down the sink and put a vengeful dash of lactose filled full cream milk into her coffee, as well as a shot of caffeine-rich espresso. I’m not proud of it now, but a barista learns to take small wins.

She sipped.

“That’s perfect. Delicious.”

—

To get notified of stories like this, click here to subscribe.

And/ or

Share with friends and scallywags below. It always means a lot.