

For months on end, I had been getting my daily coffee fix from the most hipster café in the most hipster suburb in Sydney.
Don’t judge me – the coffee was good. The baristas? Charming. And naturally, the café’s wares were always perfectly Instagrammable. Because if you get an arty coffee and don’t Instagram it, did it even happen? No.
Anyway, at first I got sucked in by the café’s hype, by the long lines (hey, it must mean the coffee’s good, right?) the fact that the baristas knew my name and order from Day Two, and of course, their impeccable Ned Kelly-esque beards.
But a few months into my takeaway coffee addiction, the relationship began to sour.
Firstly, there was the gaping hole in my wallet – $4.50 a day FOREVER adds up.
Then, there was the fact that the café was so painfully alternate that they flat-out refused to use skim milk, even though I prefer the taste (apparently, it “ruins the integrity of the coffee”. Pfft. Whatever.)
And then there were the lines. The same lines that initially won me over weren’t so appealing when it meant standing in the miserable drizzle for 20 minutes plus…
And so, I started to look for an alternative.
Because I needed my $22.50 per week to go towards more than just a few mouthfuls of caffeine.
Because I worried that it was only a matter of time before my boss noticed that I would disappear for half an hour per day just to get my cup, thanks to those endless lines.