In order to get people back to society, the Wi-Fi in this cafe can only be used after 5 p.m.

Follow the caf é (Wechat official account vdailycom) and found that Beautiful Cafe opened a small shop of its own.

Birch Cafe, located on 27th Street near Madison Avenue, looks like a typical new cafe: bare brick walls, dark log decorations, Edison-era vintage light bulbs, books neatly stacked on bookshelves. The difference is that you can only see a few laptops in this cafe-on weekdays, Wi-Fi can only be used after 5pm, and the coffee shop doesn't have that many sockets.

So if you can't surf the Internet while drinking a latte, what can you do here? There is a black-and-white writing board next to the cashier of the cafe, where guests can take a small sign and use it as a topic to talk to strangers:

The topics written above include:

Tell me. If your life is a movie, who do you want to make the soundtrack for you?

Ask me... If I were a professional wrestler, what kind of music should I play when I enter the stadium?

Tell me. A life-changing book that I should read.

……

Of course, this kind of chat-up is not popular with everyone (especially those who come up for their first cup of coffee early in the morning and are in a bad mood). People gave half-and-half reviews on review sites such as Yelp and Foursquare. Some people think that this tiresome friendliness is a little weird. "the small chat signs on the coffee table make the atmosphere of the whole cafe very strange," one user wrote. "but their coffee is really delicious!"

With the advent of the network era, people are more and more reluctant to communicate face-to-face. Nowadays, you can rarely see people reading newspapers or books in cafes. On the contrary, there is a sea of screens, with faint blue light projected on customers' faces.

"We believe from the bottom of our heart that cafes were born to provide people with the opportunity to meet and meet strangers. Cafes should be community centers," said Jeremy Leaman, co-founder of Birch Cafe. "when everyone focuses on their laptops, cafes don't play a role. We try to make it easier for people to open up to others in this way. "

These ice-breaking topics are also very effective-Lehman says he has heard that some customers have started dating after talking to each other.

At the same time, these small brands also reflect that Wi-Fi is something that kills thousands of dollars for cafe owners. "all the negative reviews we've received have been complaining that there is no Wi-Fi in the store," Mr. Lehmann said. People complain that the Internet connection is unstable and that there are not enough outlets in the store.

So when Birch Cafe opened a branch on the Upper West side a year and a half ago (at the time they didn't require Wi-Fi to be used only after 5 p.m.), small cards became a way for people to move around and share tables with strangers. "customers can get an hour's free Wi-Fi room as long as they spend," Lehmann explained. "but what we really thought was that if customers were willing to share the table with others, we would give them an extra hour to surf the Internet. At that time, the card said, 'Let's browse the World wide Web cafe together' or 'Let's surf the Internet together'. " The attempt was not very successful, Lehman added, and since then they have restricted the use of Wi-Fi.

How to make people drink more coffee less online? Birch Cafe is not the only one thinking about this.

From Los Angeles to Brooklyn, many cafes have set Wi-Fi time limits to allow computer users to sit in Internet seats, or even cover sockets to prevent consumers from surfing the Internet for long periods of time in cafes, or use cafes as office spaces (known as "caf é" or coffice).

Jodi Whalen, the owner of August First Bakery and Caf é in Burlington, Vermont, has banned the use of all electronic devices. When her store provides wireless broadband, customers will sit in the store all day. "Wireless broadband has lost a lot of revenue from us." She told NPR. For many coffee shop operators, selling coffee doesn't make much money, and most of it comes from meals-so coffee shops can't make money unless customers who use computers order sandwiches every half an hour. Banning laptops in stores has boosted Whalen's income-at the same time, the number of people in the store blankly brushing the screen and playing with social media has greatly reduced.

Of course, birch cafe chat cards are not for everyone. Maybe you just want a cappuccino and don't care about the mental journey of the person who shares the table with you. But it's not that bad to stay away from the electronic screen from time to time.

Related readings:

The difference between Italian coffee machine and American coffee machine

Italian coffee maker

It is usually equipped with a boiler to produce hot water, which is pressurized to about 9 atmospheric pressure and then flows through the powdered coffee beans in a metal filter to brew coffee. The coffee brewed by this pressurized hot water is thicker than usual and has emulsified fat. It is often called espresso or espresso. There are many kinds of Italian coffee machine. For general commercial use, the most common one is single boiler, and then there are double boilers and multiple boilers. Of course, the price also becomes more expensive, in addition to the general electronic control switch, there is also a pull-out Italian coffee machine, each has its own advantages. Commercial ones range from 40, 50, 000 to 40, 500000, and there are numerous types.

American coffee machine

Usually divided into upper and lower layers, the pre-ground powdered coffee beans are placed in an upper funnel-shaped container equipped with filter paper or metal filters, and the lower layer is a coffee pot made of glass or ceramic, pouring cold water into another separate interval. When starting, heat the cold water to about 90 degrees Celsius and gradually introduce it into the funnel-shaped container, so that the hot water passes through the coffee powder and flows into the coffee pot below.

In addition, the coffee machine can not only cook coffee, but also make tea.

Espresso: high pressure extraction

The espresso machine uses high-pressure hot water to extract coffee through the coffee powder trough. Because today's Italian coffee machines use air pumps to increase the pressure in the boiler to achieve the pressure needed to extract cream, it is also called pump coffee machine. In the past, the older Italian coffee machine needed to manually push the pressure bar to boost the boiler, also known as Laha coffee machine, now the value of Laha coffee machine is mainly reflected in its viewing, the convenience of use and the taste of coffee are not as good as pump coffee machine.

American Coffee: atmospheric pressure extraction

Generally through the American drip filter to cook, a little similar to the Italian coffee machine, the American drip filter is also to make hot water through the coffee powder tank to extract coffee. But the difference is that the hot water is at atmospheric pressure.

Other aspects

1. American coffee machine, no pressure, only black coffee, that is, American coffee. You can't make any other fancy coffee.

2, Italian coffee machine, there is a certain pressure, you can use the pressure to make ESPRESSO coffee with quite thick coffee oil. Some plain espresso can be served with milk, latte, foam, and cappuccino. And other fancy coffee.

3. Price: American coffee is of pretty good quality at about 200 yuan. Italian coffee machine, the price ranges from 7 million to more than 100 thousand.