On an otherwise boring Wednesday afternoon in Portland, Oregon, an emissary from the future visited Sprudge.com’s offices, and identified himself as such. “I’m an emissary from the future”, he said, “and I understand you’re publishing a series on new cafes currently under construction.”
“Of course,” we said. “It’s called the Build-Outs of Summer.”
The man then handed us two strange little nubs of metal, each no greater than a pebble, and gave us these instructions: “Grasp the pebble between your thumb and forefinger, and rub it into your skin. Then close your eyes and you’ll receive my message.”
We did as we were told, and lo, playing in our mind’s eye like a projection in a movie theater, a floating head did appear. “I am the cryogenically suspended head of James Freeman,” it said, and damned if it didn’t look just like the founder and CEO of Blue Bottle Coffee’s disembodied visage. “I’m speaking to you from the future—in the year 2369—to tell you about the latest Blue Bottle Coffee location at Moon Base Hyperion. We’re doing some really innovative stuff with espresso and pour-over up there on the moon, and I think your readers will dig it.”
And so we conducted this interview…
As told to Sprudge (from the future) by the cryogenically suspended head of James Freeman.
For those who aren’t familiar, will you tell us about your company?
I founded Blue Bottle Coffee at a farmers’ market in Oakland, California back in the early 21st century. Much has happened in the nearly four hundred years since then—including the ability for humans to cryogenic preserve their disembodied heads, allowing one to live on several hundred years after the end of an expected lifespan. But one thing hasn’t changed, and that’s our commitment to offering delicious coffee and cool cafe experiences. Be you in Los Angeles or Neo Los Angeles, in Tokyo or on Planet Tokyo, Blue Bottle Coffee is proud to carry on its legacy of serving coffee, or as many of our intergalactic guests know it, “Earthling Warm Arabica Seed Essence.”
Can you tell us a bit about the new space?
This is actually our third cafe on the moon. When we opened our first moon cafe (Tycho Crater), the line was literally out the door. This created serious problems for our airlock system, which messed with the waffle press and caused a powerful suction that sent a few lost souls spinning into the vastness of space. It’s always one step forward, two steps back on the moon, but we eventually solved the problem by installing pressurized queue-tubes.
We favor an antique, “Third Wave retro” vibe in our cafes, but our second moon location (on the Sea of Tranquility’s popular Highline Park) had a terrible time when the authentic 21st-century La Marzocco Strada MP unit we acquired exploded. This was during some sort of moon colony power surge, and the result was a miniature black hole. Luckily we were able to travel back in time before the universe collapsed, forcefully abduct several of your era’s best espresso machine technicians, reset the power transformers, and properly backflush the groupheads.
We go for a clean, minimalistic, Earth-bound feel for all of our galactic cafes. Our hands-on style of service does take some explaining when we’re visited by large groups of Marklar tourists from the planet Marklar; they’re used to quick service and grab-and-go options, which we think are great, but our cafes are meant to be different from, say, the cold drink aisle at their local Marklar Organic Market.
For Moon Base Hyperion our custom espresso machine was designed by a cybernetic Terry Ziniewicz clone from his compound in the terrestrial Olympia Free State.
What’s your approach to coffee?
We staff primarily clones and cyborgs at our cafes, including some familiar faces to those in ancient times. Our prized Stephen Vick replicant bot replicates coffee flavor profiles from the universe’s many terraformed “finca planets”, and the Gianni Clone 6 from Nuova–Nuova Simonelli greets customers at the door with an affable “HEYYYYYY”. In fact, I understand that Clone 6 has been experimenting with some time travel nodes, and is becoming something of a fixture at your early 21st-century barista competitions.
We do serve a beverage you would recognize today as ristretto espresso. This must come as a great shock to you, for I know it directly contradicts the teachings of the one you call Hoff-mann.
Really, we’re just about a great cup of coffee, and the moment you get to spend enjoying it between rocket commutes.
Any machines, coffees, special equipment lined up?
The aforementioned Ziniewicz bot designed our custom 24 group espresso machine at Hyperion, and that should draw quite a crowd. It’s a working antique, you know. Of course, we’ll have our signature selection of anti-gravity syphons, as well as rare selections from the highly prized Aida Battle Uranus Colony portfolio. And Hyperion will continue our tradition of installing antique audiophile speakers into every Blue Bottle Cafe—we scored some really nice Cessaro Horn Acoustics from a scrap heap on Garbage Island.
We’ve also partnered with small press houses in London and on the moon Triton (setting for the popular Netflix Retina Streaming comedy program “Tritonlandia“) to develop a tasteful selection of printed matter to welcome guests into the shop. As you may be aware, printed material is experiencing a retro post-ironic revival in our cloud-based stem-wired society.
Are you working with craftspeople, architects, and/or creatives that you’d like to mention?
Since the early 21st century, all of our cafes have been designed in-house, but construction on Moon Base Hyperion was managed by Zyzyzyzxxx Construction, and overseen by our moon projects manager, Adlai McGovern.
What’s your hopeful target opening date/month?
We hope to be open by the end of 2369, but it may be a spring 2370 opening depending on permits, which as you might expect are a real pain in the ass to get done right the moon.
