Espresso Project is the heart of community living in Celbridge. I am a regular there, and if it was to ever go Celbridge would not be the same. This has everything to do with what lies outside the coffee.
Let me explain: The coffee is hands down the greatest coffee i've gotten in Ireland. But thats besides the point, a fantastic extra that comes with a place that silently and effectively critiques the norm. That is to say, Espresso Project have found the perfect balance between being intelligible to a society of people, that is, a place where a lot of people would like to spend some time and not be overly weirded out (this did admittedly take some time). And yet it offers resistance to dominant capitalist norms that define most 'service industry' spaces with a crippling sameness that means we can expect the same from one place to the next; 18 ounce latte's, inoffensive music, being left on our own (because why would I want to speak to another human being anyway?), and most of all 'customer is always right' policies which always comes coupled with a disingenuous politeness that screams I want you to die behind a plastic smile.
Espresso project have done away with that. Sure, you may find your Barista finishing his cigarette before he makes you your coffee, you may not always get a smile because frankly today has been a shitty day, and the music is not always to my taste and, sometimes, too loud. Contrary to what you might think, all these things are wonderful, because all of these things speak of integrity and authenticity. It doesn't matter that I do not like dubstep, what matters is that Joel (the highly esteemed owner extraordinaire) likes those things and he isn't going to apologies for it. Why? because he's running the place he likes.
If you want sameness, do not come. If you want extra hot milk drinks (which, by the way, destroys the protein content of the milk thus rendering the milk drink not only non-tasting, because your taste buds cannot taste over 60 degree's, but ill-tasting, for even if you are to wait for it to cool the milk has been burnt. It'd be like asking for a well done stake and waiting for it to cool down) then do not come. If you want to be left on your own, then do not come. Or maybe do come, just to see, for you might even surprise yourself. The community atmosphere there speaks of an inclusion that says 'I recognise you as another living, breathing, human being and you are welcome here'. Indeed, as the people there are respectful also, sometimes this does not happen, which means a new person to the environment can occupy an in-between space where they feel left out, or feel like they have stumbled into a community group that they are not involved in. I can assure you that if you smile, or dont smile, but for a moment take your head away from the everyday absorption in ourselves and the world that we are usually implicated in, and ask a stranger how his day has been, they will not only love to include you in that moment, but you might meet some truly great people. I know I have.
As a result, espresso project quietly critiques dominant social structures that are desperately in need of radical questioning. It is political, without ever being engaged in 'politics' (in the narrower sense of the political sphere) and entirely engaged in the polis, in the ancient greek sense of a collection of norms that define and come to govern society. Espresso Project awakens the natural philosophical impulse we are endowed with as being a human, that societal norms have done as much work as possible to stamp out of us.
It is, in that sense, a living work of art and as such it is no surprise that not only great community groups such as cultivate celbridge, but also paradigm changing social organisation projects such as Derrybeg Farms (as a community supported agriculture project) can all be traced back to the environment and mood available in Espresso Project.
Through its insistence on being as it is, and as such out of the norm, Espresso Project intangibly changes everything.
If you want to taste the future, taste Espresso Project coffee. read more
