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| - The biggest plus to this cafe is location. It's right in the middle of campus, right across from the Chazen Museum, very close to one of the campus theaters, right across from the Badger Bus stop. Even though there are almost as many superior coffee shops in Madison as there are vegan liberal New Age former hippies, in the middle of the harsh Wisconsin winter, closer is better. It's not a bad place at all between academic sessions when most of the undergrads aren't around. When classes are in session there is such a high volume of business, the regular coffee is always fresh, so important if you like it black.
Now, on the other hand, when classes are in session, the place is usually crammed full of college students, which makes me feel fat, old, and tired. Tired, because there's often not a seat in the place. If a seat does open up, it's pretty cramped to begin with, but most of the undergrads here have stuff all around them, their computers, tablets, mp3 players, phones, open knapsacks, coats, scarfs, mittens, notes, books, friends, lettuce (only once, but one time I was here killing 20 minutes but trying to get some work done and the young lady next to me had a round head of presumably organic lettuce between us, which I found irrationally distracting), etc. In Madison, coffee baristas take the place of bartenders and therapists for many denizens, there are dozens of cafes that not only serve tasty fresh coffee, but are staffed by very pleasant workers who make you feel like you belong in this world, skillfully adjusted to how busy it is (quickly if it's busy, a little more patiently if it's not). This place is quite the contrast, the workers are jaded alienated college students who make it pretty clear (maybe they would say, "obvie") that they would much rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, and that they are determined to not get good at making and serving coffee. If you're looking for the sort of cafe where the cappuccino is served up with a flourish, this is not that place, no one here knows how to do the leaf. Only a very short walk from one of the world's most respected South Asian Studies programs, it seems especially wrong that they don't realize that chai literally means, tea.
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