To Lid or Not to Lid

I would rather hand you a hot cup of coffee if it has a lid on it. It makes me feel more confident that I will not be responsible for burning you, and more confident that I am handing you a Finished Product. For your $1.45 (for 12 ounces) you are about to consume the culimination of the Phoenix Coffee process, from our careful green bean buying, to our artisan roasting, then grinding, measuring, brewing and pouring. But if you are handed a cup of coffee without a lid, it feels like you are getting a work-in-progress that you have to finish up yourself. Like leaving the listener to fill in the punch line on an elaborately told joke.

But of course if I apply the lid myself (as your Barista), there are Ramifications and Implications. Which are as follows. When I applied the lid, I used my hands. Which hopefully were clean. And if you are a half-n-half or skim or soy or whole milk or sugar or honey or sugar substitute user, you will have to carefully, so as not to burn yourself, remove the lid and add said condiments. And then you will need to re-apply the lid if your coffee is to-go. If your coffee wasn't to go, I apologize, as it should have been served in a ceramic mug in the first place. So assuming your coffee is to go, the lid has to be re-applied. These lids are not an engineering marvel. They have their weaknesses and do not necessarily do well with being removed and re-applied.

If you have ordered a specialty drink, such as a cappuccino or a latte or a mocha, the situation is different. With a mocha, I should hope that you are not planning on adding sugar. So applying a lid would probably be a good idea. Unless, of course, your mocha came with whipped cream and maybe chocolate sprinkles. In that case, it is difficult to enjoy the whipped cream through the narrow opening of a domed cappuccino lid. Whipped cream enjoyment requires a large mouthful of whipped cream. At least in my book it does.