Instant Gratification?

Splish-splosh. I'm mopping the floor at Runza again, wondering if we'll have any more customers between now and the blessed hour of 4pm when I make my way back to the coziness of Home. I glance up at the TV screen and see the headline:

Starbucks to Cash in on Billion-Dollar Instant Coffee Market

I gasp. What? Starbucks making...gulp... instant coffee? Instant coffee? My mind jumps to a few evenings prior when Steve and I were digging around in my parents' pantry for ground coffee.
"Nope, nothing," I sigh.
"Wait...what's this?" Steve reaches for a small container on a high shelf. I stop him as his hand touches the container.
"Oh, no. That's instant coffee."
Our simultaneous shuddering indicates that we would rather drink nothing at all than that...brown liquid. Now, here in Runza, I am informed that the reliable, consistent, mood-lifting Starbucks has betrayed my coffee snob sensibilities and gone over to the dark side.

As I continue my responsibility to the mop bucket, I begin to process why this is such an unpleasant development. It seems that the foremost difficulty is taste. Like a pre-packaged apple pie from a gas station, instant coffee is but a faint resemblance of the robust, warm flavor of the real deal. But the instant coffee in question is from Starbucks. Surely the taste wouldn’t be compromised.

Perhaps there is a greater issue at hand. We live in a time-oriented culture. Each day begins with an alarm clock signaling the time to rise and prepare for the day. The majority of our jobs begin and end according to a time-clock, not upon the completion of a project. Arriving late at a meeting or for church results in condescending glances. When we live as if we will pay for every moment lost, it makes sense that something like instant coffee would appeal to the masses. Who has time to stop and wait in a drive-thru while Ashley brews an espresso?

Interestingly, coffee is grown in traditionally event-oriented cultures, like South America or Africa, while popular coffee and espresso beverages have their origin in the predominantly relaxed cultures of Italy or France. Older cookbooks like The Fannie Farmer Cookbook or Irma Rombauer’s The Joy of Cooking feature extended discussions on the importance of taking the necessary time and paying the required attention to brew a good pot of coffee. Too often the enjoyment of drinking a quality beverage is thwarted by the perceived inability to simply wait.

In a sense, Starbucks is a franchised attempt to merge an event-oriented beverage into a time-oriented culture. In purchasing coffee from Starbucks we sense that we have participated in something greater and more elite than the normal routine of grabbing a quick cup of joe from the nearest grocery store. Now the production of Starbucks instant coffee reminds that not even this is immune from the hurried state of American lives. Herein lies the great difficulty.

But who am I to ramble on in this vein? I stand in a fast-food restaurant waiting for…beep! The drive-thru signal sounds in my headset. Someone wants a cheeseburger (plain), a large fry….