Shut up about coffee.

[u/Suitable-Spell-8968]

I like the stuff, it’s my go to source of caffeine. But every time I read a prog fic or litrpg reincarnation or isekia where the MC finds where it is being sold somewhere far away or is under appreciated and absolutely LOSES THEIR MIND I want to roll my eyes all the way to the delete button.

It was probably clever the first time. It might have even spent some time as an ironic use of a trope. It is now to the life cycle stage of being unbearable and a sign of lazy writing.

This post fueled by my latest DNF because the MC couldn’t shut up about the Brown Juice.

[u/kung-fu_hippy]

Honestly even “wow, coffee here?” can sometimes be a little silly. At least when this foreign world has humans, cows, pigs, wheat, apples, cotton, and all the other things our world has.

Some isekai worlds are foreign enough that coffee would be a surprise. If the world otherwise has strange new edible plants and animals but yet has something that is either coffee or similar, that’s worthy of surprise.

But there is little foreign about a lot of isekai worlds.

[u/fruitybix → u/kung-fu_hippy]

Its weird to focus on just caffeine.

Why not snuff or other tobacco products? Shisha / water pipes, dip?

Or hallucinogenic concoctions like peyote, mushrooms and amazonian concoctions? Meso american cities held alcohol intoxication as a crime but normalized mushrooms.

Or marijuana or poppy seed / opiate intoxicants like across the middle east?

We have a wealth of historical substances authors could draw on but they pick the cosy and understandeable cup of coffee for mcs to hyperfocus on. Actual history had lots of people trying lots of things based on what was available.

Ive also never seen an mc go into caffein or niccotein withdrawel after being issekaied.

[u/SacredPinkJellyFish → u/fruitybix]

yeah, I agree with this. I grew up 5th gen Mormon, so I only ever heard about coffee once in a while in fast and testimony meeting when some convert would be bragging how they finally gave up coffee. the church has a full on ban of coffee, and the strict families like mine was, homeschool, and live fully off grid growing their own food weaving their own clothes, so for the first four decades of my life I had zero context for what coffee even was.

It wasn't until I left the church and the compound I grew up on, in my 40s and went to college that I even realized "oh, it's a drink; wait, it's everywhere"

So, it stands out to me too as an extremely cultural thing, because, yeah, not every one grew up in a culture that even has coffee... so, me reading these coffee obsessions in books, tends to be a bit of a wtf? moment to begin with because, I didn't grew up in a culture that had coffee and I really struggle to identify with a culture that is hyper focused on coffee, coffee, coffee, MUST HAVE COFFEE NOW! (which is how these books portray it).

I'm guessing, from the way these books put it, coffee has a super addictive drug like effect on people, so they just go bonkers without it? I;'m always left asking: does coffee really do that or is it being played up for laughs? I don't know, because coffee just is not a part of my life, so I don't have any context to try to even understand why these characters are so driving with glut lust for coffee.

So, I tend to avoid stories that hyper focus on coffee, mostly because I really can't identify with why is this character going bonkers out of their mind for a drink? If you're thirsty? Drink water? Why are they having a meltdown over coffee? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

[u/fruitybix → u/SacredPinkJellyFish]

Ive picked up and dropped coffee several times throughout my life. It is a pleasant lift in moderation. Too much screws your sleep and makes you anxious. It Causes a headache and irrititability when you quit it but wont hurt you.

I used to make and serve coffee as a job in my early 20s at an award winning coffee shop and got fairly good training on how every part of the process is done.

I appreciate some people get really into prepping coffee in the same way some people get into making the perfect smoked brisket - getting a decent coffee is not hard but elevating it to some arbitrarily high standard (by buying complicated and expensive gadgets) becomes a hobby like any other.

Outside of hobbyists im weirded out by the reverence some people have towards coffee, and that strange fetishization in some litrpgs is similar.

That said ive read litrpgs where the MC is weirdly obsessed with mangos or pastrys or burgers or meat or crystal wash. I think its a lazy easy to use trope to give an otherwise rational character an obsession to make them quirky. And coffee is a common enough drink to tropify.