I love bad coffee and hate algorithms
I love bad coffee.
One of the least sophisticated ways of making coffee is to just brew some in a pot and pour it into a cup. Americaās famous for its bad coffee. When asking for a cup of coffee in, say, Amsterdam or Paris, you often get a nice, skillfully brewed cup of espresso ā concentrated caffeinated artistry. The bouquet of flavour in such creations is something to admire, really.
And yet, every time I travel outside of the United States, I miss my average cup-of-Joe. When I first came to the United States, I would occasionally stop by at a diner that would serve terribly burnt coffee that was probably sitting in a coffee machine all day. That brew wasnāt delicate or even particularly potent: it was a straightforward, unapologetic part of the landscape. And that sense of Americana stuck with me. It brings me warmth, and slowly sipping my terrible cup of coffee is a highlight of my day. Thereās an unpretentious honesty to it that I find increasingly rare.
Itās in this appreciation for the simple and unadorned that I find a contrast to a broader trend. In an increasingly interconnected world, itās easy to focus on wanting the best, or appreciating what weāre told is the best. We learn about the ātopā dining places, the āmust-haveā brand for a pair of pants, the ābestā everything. This pressure isnāt new, but the mechanisms delivering these suggestions have become incredibly sophisticated. Now, weāre constantly nudged, particularly through our digital interfaces and by algorithmic suggestions, towards a curated, supposedly superior experience, often designed more for broad appeal or engagement metrics than personal resonance.
Choosing ābadā coffee, then, can feel like a small act of rebellion.
Itās a quiet refusal to have my preferences dictated, whether by a food critic offline or the mighty algorithm online. Itās easy to lose sight of what you genuinely like when youāre bombarded with content ā perfectly filtered, endlessly optimized ā telling you that something else is ābetter.ā It might be objectively better by certain metrics, it probably is, but it isnāt necessarily better for me.
Yes, the cat video YouTubeās algorithm surfaces might be, by its engagement data, the ābestā piece of cat-related content currently available. But often, it has no real relation to me, to the quirky humor of people I actually know, or the niche digital spaces I would consider mine. Thereās no personal history there, no shared context, just an echo of mass appeal. Itās the digital equivalent of a focus-tested AAA movie ā technically proficient, but lacking a soul.
That diner coffee isnāt aspiring to be anything other than what it is; it hasnāt been A/B tested or optimized for viral sharing. Itās a personal anchor in a sea of imposed ābests,ā a tangible connection in an often-intangible world.
This isnāt a wholesale rejection of quality or a Luddite call to abandon our digital tools. Itās about recognizing that personal resonance often trumps algorithmic perfection. Itās about the freedom to find joy in the imperfect, the idiosyncratic, the things that speak to us for reasons that donāt require external validation or a high engagement score.
Sometimes, that wonderfully ābadā cup of coffee isnāt just a beverage; itās a small declaration of independence from the tyranny of the curated feed. And that, in its own quiet, un-optimized way, is deeply satisfying.