The basic knowledge of coffee culture is keen on Balzac in the coffee shop.

When Balzac was an art youth in Paris, he would leave a note on the table for his wife every day before going out for a walk: I was on my way to the coffee shop when I was not in the coffee shop. In addition to becoming a big-character poster posted by the cafe owner, this sentence has also become a means for many young writers and artists to draw a clear line between themselves and the vulgar world.

If we look at the clues of social development and the progress of civilization, the cultivation of literary and artistic youth has probably gone through several courses.

The little brother who wore bell-bottoms and hot hair in the 1980s: let's go to karaoke with my brother; the little brother who wore a white scarf and combed Aaron Kwok's split head in the 1990s: let's go to the movies with him; the little brother with the above hairstyles and other hairstyles since 2000: come on, follow me to the bar High Among these people, some of them, tired of singing and dancing, watched the flowers blooming, silently took the book "the self-cultivation of an Actor", and then tilted their buttocks to the first Starbucks that had just opened in the city, and sucked a bubbling mocha contentedly in the afternoon sun.

I have to mention Starbucks, a terrible global coffee chain, before it landed in Xintiandi in Shanghai, Dongfang Square in Beijing and Zhongshan Road in Guangzhou, our ignorant and childish coffee experience was generally messed up by islands and old trees. Around the year 2000, a little brother I used to be infatuated with would take a pile of Southern weekend coffee to Shangdao by the lake at 10:00 every weekend to ask for a cappuccino and play Xiao Qiang crossword. Why do you remember so clearly? Because I'm filling it out. later? Later, Starbucks spread out in one city after another with its huge dark green umbrella, and gradually we realized what is caramel macchiato, what is espresso, what is decaf, and what is professional.

With regard to decaf, literary and art young people were puzzled for a long time. When they went to Starbucks for the Nth time, a literary youth finally plucked up the courage to ask: what is decaf? Answer: those with low caffeine will drink less High. The young man of literature and art thought for a moment: give me a glass of Gao Yin.

Today, Starbucks has been symbolized. In Citic Square in Shenzhen or around Beijing International Trade, Starbucks is full of people whenever the sun is a little brighter. You can often see business elites with laptops hesitating and talking loudly: Joey's 30 million bill depends on you; the party of complaining women with three Michelin tires on their bellies, their huge pigeon eggs sparkling in the sun Occasionally, an uncle and sister-in-law with a KFC cup next door accidentally occupy the green seats here, and then they are killed and killed again and again by the waiting, noble, educated Starbucks. Fortunately, except Starbucks, our city has gradually developed some of its own coffee culture, so there are many unknown, private but full of artistic conception of small cafes.

Private cafes are like the "fate" that can not be found on the city map, they are like a footnote of the city, silently and sadly hidden around a street corner. When you come out of Shanghai Xintiandi, turn a few corners and stroll patiently along Maoming Road, you will be hit by many small cafes; when you ride in a human-powered tricycle of stupid tourists speeding cheering and cheering in Beijing's lotus pool, some cute-looking bars and cafes are slipping away under your nose with wind speed. In the area of the National Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, small cafes and literary youth full of personality and boast have become a scene on Nanshan Road and once become a destination for adolescent throbbing girls: go to Nanshan Road and see men with long hair!

In the winter of 2008, I was running around the continent like a maverick pig, killing from Starbucks in one country to Starbucks in another until I broke into a coffee shop called Since 1886 in Frankfurt. This ancient cafe was the only entertainment place in Frankfurt that was still open during World War II. In those days, in addition to coming to have a cup of coffee to find out about each other's relatives, people also moved stage dramas here. There are still mottled wooden stairs and stage puppets, and when you are buried among countless old men and women who come to kill time with a cup of coffee, you will be surprised that time has been passed by. In Vietnam, the country of origin of coffee beans, Starbucks has little room for survival. Vietnamese people drink coffee just like Chinese people drink tea, and there are simple cafes everywhere. This momentum is very similar to the big bowl of tea that cost 20 cents a bowl in old Beijing and the street cafe in Vietnam. For about 5 yuan, you can have a good cup of Dilu coffee under a chair that is about to fall apart, with the fine sunshine in the afternoon. In China, I have been to too many cafes with different sentiments, and they are combined into a group of sweet and thick montage fragments, embellished with the tongue-twisting fragrance like a blue mountain in the mediocre days. Recently, the person who often goes to order coffee is the indifferent coffee next to the Hangzhou company. the owner is a heavily mature man between the ages of 30 and 40. As its name suggests, this small coffee shop is located in an expensive business circle, selling delicious and cheap coffee.

Coffee, like Valentine's Day, has become a totem of the current generation of literary and artistic youth after drifting from overseas. Most of the time, we just want to go to a cafe, have a drink, listen to an inexplicable English song, and use an inexplicable gesture to record this inexplicable life.