The coffee was bitter Cal thought, taking another sip. Yeah what the fuck.
Spacecity
cafe was busy as usual for breakfast, Cal was trying to eat again, but a little less so he could lose back the weight non-suspiciously. The place seemed if Cal closed his eyes just like a cafe on earth. People kept saying hi like he was new. In someways he was. So he just said hi back and answered their questions. Then people would be like holy shit its Cal!
But the coffee was off, he took another sip. Keith came in later, and Cal told him. They first went to the machine. Yeah man, they swirled their cups something was off. They walked to the barista, John. The usual guys. Yeah man for sure. They waited as he prepared the drinks, flipping their drink tokens in the air and trying to catch them. Not that they were going to use them, just that sometimes you had to have something in your hands.
John handed them the coffees, enjoy guys. They both took a sip, and Keith let his drain out of his mouth into the cup, something is off man. They told John. He immediately took offense, guys I've been doing this for awhile maybe you just don't like that kind of drink. Try it Cal said, and John took a drink of his.
Shit, what the fuck is this? You think they changed the coffee. This is like a robusta, or some shit. Or they used old beans. Idk man its not supposed to taste like this. John thought for a second he had it on clean mode.
Did you try the machine. Yeah they said in unison, it was the same, just bad.
Do you think we've been re-beaned? John said. He read about it in a magazine, The Bean Times, where people can re compressed old coffee into the bean form and just sell that. Looks the same, but tastes wayyyy worse.
They went to his beans. I mean we don't have a comparison. John, smashed it with his hand, it does seem more brittle. He messaged into his barista blog, need urgent help, have I been re-beaned?
Other people's coffee was also a bit bad, they were just being polite to John, they kindly smiled everyone has an off day one of them said. But the three of them knew something was up.
