Although this summer has been moderate within the grand scheme of things, it’s nonetheless July in DC, aka top lower back sweat/forehead glow season.
When you’re trapped among humongous backpacks on a steamy Metro journey, the remaining element you’d want to pour into your boiling frame is an equally boiling warm beverage, proper? Well, indeed, if you’re one of DC’s die-tough hot coffee acolytes, this is exactly what you need.
Despite nowadays’s 90-something-diploma temperatures, the maximum number of the oldsters coming into the Adams Morgan Pitango Gelato this morning for espresso ordered it warm, says supervisor Lori DeVoe. “We opened at eight AM and have had about forty-five-to-50 hot liquids [ordered] out of a total of eighty income,” says DeVoe. “Even sitting outdoors—they’ll take a warm tea or a hot coffee and sit outside with it.” (Your correspondent suffered a mild episode of heatstroke just typing out that quote.)
It seems caffeine drinkers have a similar penchant for masochism on H Street Northeast. “People will order it, and they’ll be like, ‘Yeah, I’m getting a hot coffee. I know it’s hot outside—I like it hot,'” says Ariel Mayes, a barista at the H Street Wydown. Most of the orders are split flippantly between hot and bloodless in the summer, she says, even during the mainly toasty, goat-yoga-canceling heatwave we noticed earlier this month.
“There are several individuals who are certainly dedicated to drinking simply warm espresso,” says Mayes. “That’s just what they experience.” (For the report, she is #TeamHot, although she is short to difficulty a diplomatic assertion that she is “not anti-iced coffee.”)
Some Hot Coffee Party participants’ beverage preferences with a systematic rationale, says Dolcezza barista Dina Guynef.
“In the morning, humans like hotter liquids. I realize that your body temperature should have a warm drink as opposed to a cold drink,” she says. “It just enables along with your equilibrium and all that.” (Case in point: She had finished making a warm latte earlier than picking up the telephone.)
About half of the folks who come into the Dupont Circle Dolcezza order warm drinks inside the summertime, says Guynef, and most of the people of these courageous souls move for lattes.
But some humans may choose a hot drink just for the emotional pull, says DeVoe. “Maybe it’s just the nice and cozy feeling that they like,” she says of these renegades. “It’s usually comforting to have a warm drink in your hand.”
So does she think they’re massive, pain-causing weirdos? “No, I don’t assume so,” she says. “I mean, I drink cold espresso on an ice day.”
