»In which we drink the coffee, slowly

Waiting on line at Blue Bottle Coffee always provides vicarious joy and entertainment. Sunday mid-morning, I was behind a lanky, jumpy man who told everyone that his wife had just given birth. "At 3:29 this morning!" He had two espressos, which he said reminded him of his student days in Zagreb: "We would drink five, six espresso and study all night."

This morning the talk was about the San Francisco Chroncle write-up on drip coffee, which credits the Slow Food movement with making coffee drinkers aware of the value of a just-made cuppa joe.

This type of elixir is not for everyone -- this is no In-N-Out coffee experience. Because most filter-drip purveyors use only four to six filter cones and the beans are usually ground to order, orders can quickly back up. But there are plenty of people who don't mind, as a visit last month to the Ferry Plaza's Blue Bottle showed. Despite the rain and the long line, cup-at-a-time drip coffee fans continued to show up and wait.

"The waits are really epic on Saturdays," [James Freeman, owner of Blue Bottle] says. "If you're going to wait 30 minutes for an 8-ounce coffee, it better be really good."

Wait or no wait, Blue Bottle does not pretend to be a café: it has the atmosphere of the Caffe Zio I knew as a young 'un, drinking espresso from La Prima Espresso in Pittsburgh. A short counter, precisely-made ristretto shots of espresso, barely a menu. Yet the best coffee, the most personable and straightforward baristas, and the intended result: the joy of coffee.

This morning the talk was also about routine: a delivery-van driver came up to the counter, ordered a drink, another drink to take away, and a third drink to take to a coworker unfortunate enough to be leashed to a desk somewhere and unable to visit Blue Bottle in person. The delivery man said that he was recently offered another, easier route in Millbrae, but demurred, thinking "How am I going to get my coffee?"