The war has fogged my vision to the extent that I missed an important post on the central focus of civilisation, namely coffee. Gummo Trotsky selects “Latte” for his word of the day and writes

I think we can forego the Macquarie Dictionary link on this one – we all know what latte is. It’s what the out of touch inner city elites drink to wash down their lunch-time foccaccias or croques-monsieur while their less pretentious suburban cousins are happy to settle for a cappucino and a toasted sanger.

If this item from yesterday’s Age is any indication, there’s a lot of people in the out-of-touch inner city elite. And the numbers are growing. According to a survey by BIS Shrapnel, latte consumption grew by 50% over two years with 225 million dollars worth of lattes sold last year. Assuming that the retail price of a cafe latte is $2.50, that’s a total of 90 million cafe lattes.

Gummo follows up with some extrapolations suggesting that in a few years, latte drinkers will be in the majority.

I would view this prospect with horror, but I think it will not come to pass. Latte is the Cold Duck of the 21st century, and like Cold Duck will be shaken off with a shudder as people realise what real coffee is about.