Londoners the results are in: This is officially what your choice of coffee shop says about you

The skill of choosing the right coffee shop is one that is often underrated but will be essential to your university experience. With the Student Centre and Senate House either fully booked or currently closed due to Covid, coffee joints (briefly) became flooded with sleep-deprived, essay-ridden grads in desperate need of caffeine and a change of scene from their digs. 

With so many Instagram-worthy spots to pick across the City, the once overlooked space of a coffee shop plays a major role in defining your personality, especially if it becomes your regular place to grind, if you’ll pardon the pun. 

So here I am, using my experience in people watching and ridiculous java jargon to tell you precisely what your choice of coffee shop says about you.

Starbucks

You are basic. Your order consists of a Frappuccino or a Vanilla iced latté and you most definitely photograph it straight onto your story to remind everyone that you live in LoNdOn. 

You are struggling to let go of the 2000s, and roll your eyes at the overpriced cappuccino your friend purchased from the indie spot down the road. I have to admit that you do in fact have the upper-hand in this situation because did they even get points on their rewards card with their buy? I think not.  

Costa

Are you a mother? Or enjoy the sound of crying children during a coffee break? 

Either Starbucks was full or you are in desperate need of a place to actually meet your deadline. You fit into the category of student that comes to London from a small village town in the South of England, calls their mother ‘Mummy’ non-ironically and only orders hot chocolates. For you, Costa is the height of coffee houses, and for that, I am judging majorly. 

Caffè Nero

Oh, congratulations on gaining a Spring Week! But please, please shut up about it.

The Caffé Nero crowd wear an ancestor’s ’88 college kit around campus, which is odd given that they study in London and not Oxbridge. With this in mind, it seems the blue of the logo is the main pull factor for the breed of customer that this chain attracts, *cough cough* Tories. They are also the people that tell you they only drink at independent spots, but I will let the turtleneck and fake Clubmaster combination speak for itself. 

Insta Cafés

Your whole Instagram is just an ode to cafés with flower walls everywhere. Unlike every other student, coffee is not a caffeinated beverage to you but instead, it is an art form. And, the experience of going out for coffee is something to be documented and cherished. You don’t have a regular order because you like to try the quirkiest thing on the menu. Green Tea Latte- no problem. Chocolate champagne cream cappucino- delightful.

Bubble tea places 

So you watch Anime, have a skateboard and probably a tattoo somewhere? Nice(!).

You have a TikTok addiction as well as a Tapioca pearl preference, and use the word ‘quirky’ too frequently for your age. Please reevaluate such characteristics, before you slate your peers about the inferiority of Bubbleology and Chatime. 

Gail’s

You’re a brunch person, you don’t really do coffee. You do brunch with a chai latte. Both are signs of the fact that you have wayyy to much of a disposable income to be a normal student. So the question is: are you spending on mummy or daddy’s credit card?

You’re part of the rich clique who study BASc or Social Sciences. You’re only doing a degree to pass three years before you return back to your country home to hack your horses. Then you’ll ascend into the family business dynasty and take on a position that you are hugely underqualified for. When you’re not a lady doing brunch you’re looking for an “older boyfriend” and planning “ski weekends” with your friends to Verbier.

Joe and the Juice

Art. Student. Or a London first-timer.

You are in desperate need of enlightenment in the art of consuming caffeine, as you only drink green tea or willingly spend extortionate amounts on a subpar fruit juice in the name of ‘aesthetic’. There is no aesthetic, you just relegated from the Starbucks league, only to fill your Instagram feed with houses in Notting Hill and to tweet about astrology. 

Pret

In the words of Kevin McCallister, ‘I wouldn’t want to spoil your fun, Mr. Cheapskate.’ 

If you are still going to Pret in February, you definitely have multiple credit cards and are probably on your fifth subscription to their free month of coffees, even if it is solely used on their smoothies. You won’t ever be heard using your real name when ordering, à la Starbucks addict, as to avoid getting your subscription barred. You may think you have an extensive palate, given all the time you have wasted trying as many different drinks as you can as part of your subscription, but given the standard of joe that Pret offers, it simply remains just that: time wasted.

Independent 

You are either a boy who orders an espresso or black filter from Monmouth Coffee Co, because you ‘like to taste the coffee’ or you are a girl who has a separate Instagram account for film photography.

Either way, your sole personality trait is being ‘edgy’ and you like to exercise this by travelling miles to a java joint so off-grid it might as well not exist. Often seen sporting Carhartt, reading Marx and smoking Marlboro Golds, the independent coffee shop frequenter is elusive, witty and highly likely to break your heart. They definitely use the word ‘based’ while listening to The Smiths, but almost always make for good company. 

Campus Cafés

Be it Gordon’s, Print room, or George Farha, you know them all too well. You are the person who half-arses everything, from your degree work to, ostensibly, your choice of coffee shop. You cannot quite commit to a library nor see yourself in a mainstream spot, so reside in the campus joints, attempting to socialise between chapters of what is most probably a Geography textbook.