[Festro]

Article posits this argument:

"They’re not really about coffee anymore. They’re selling a lifestyle."

Then says of the old coffee "Coffee in Iran isn’t new—we were drinking it long before tea took over. Back in the Safavid era, coffeehouses were where people gathered for stories, debates, and a hit of something strong." - this is a lifestyle related to coffee.

And says about the new coffee "Walk in, and the menu reads like a novel: “Ethiopian Yirgacheffe with hints of jasmine and citrus.”" - this is the literal attributes of coffee, origin and flavour profile.

I'm sorry, but coffee is now, more than ever, about the coffee. People who enjoy coffee then make it a part of their lifestyle.

I'd love to hear more about the older Iranian coffee culture, that sounds wonderfully romantic. It's a pattern across the world that we've lost access to third spaces as everything gains a capitalised cost. And as media has intensified and technology poked into every waking moment we're less likely to gather amongst our community in those spaces to just sit and listen anymore. I think we've evolved new ways of doing things, like how we enjoy our newfound international access to coffee varietals but it's good to address what we've lost in doing so.

This article is a bit whiny about the new, and doesn't talk enough about the qualities of the old. There's a good point to be made, but the article makes it poorly.

[visarga]

> "They’re not really about coffee anymore. They’re selling a lifestyle."

I like the emphatic style of GPT-4o lately. I can spot it from a mile.

[gwern]

Bingo. OP is obviously LLM-written and is nothing but clickbait. (Did anything but that tweet even happen? Is any of it true?) And HN is falling for it hook, line, and sinker exactly as calculated.

Look at the author's previous blog posts: low effort, not even correctly spelled or written, like https://adelbordbari.github.io/album/2025-1-25-the-horror-an... (as expected from an Iranian ESL) - and then this one is suddenly boom: perfectly spelled, em-dashes all over, and where did all these <br> come from? Who writes a Github Pages Markdown Jekyll post with a bunch of <br>s in it...? An LLM, obviously.

https://adelbordbari.github.io/about/

> I’m studying artificial intelligence at university...I’m busy with my storybook that’s supposed to be published by June 2024 as well.

[imnitwit]

the <br>s come from Jekyll :) it turns the newline in md to <br>s in html.

[pazimzadeh]

so they used chatGPT to translate their blog post from farsi to english. who cares?

translation and transliteration is one of the things chatgpt is great at.

[gwern]

They obviously did not write OP and 'just' machine translate it, because no one writes like that (and if they were being honest, they would have disclosed that upfront). A LLM came up with most of that... and maybe all of that... and how much of that is true? (What do you know about coffee in the Safavid era, or tea in the Qajars? Is 'Ethiopian Yirgacheffe' even a thing? Is there a coffee culture in Iran at all? How would you know? Only 1 or 2 commenters on this page even seem to know anything about Iran to begin with.)

> Seems like the same tired take on third wave coffee, without much specific to Iran.

> This article is a bit whiny about the new, and doesn't talk enough about the qualities of the old.

> Funny how even a repressive theocracy can seem so familiar. I guess that's globalization for you.

> One thing the author fails to take note of here is that Iranians have historically been extremely precious about their bougie little drinks.

> This is a poor take on what's actually a rich cultural shift towards variety seeking.

:thinking_face:

[pazimzadeh]

Ok, maybe. They could definitely have prompted "Turn this tweet into a clickbait blog post"

Yes, they should have disclosed how much of it is pure LLM vs. prompt.

I don't know what the rest of your comment is talking about. Googling "Yirgacheffe" shows it's a real thing. The Safavid coffee/Qajar tea claims seem accurate as well. So you at least learned something from the article.

I was in Iran in 2008 and half of my family visits all the time. Copying Western consumptions habits was already a thing when I was there, and it makes sense that it's kept up. Probably as a way for young people to signal their alignment with Western culture and/or signal having disposable income in a time when the economy is in a tough spot.

So the actual content of the article is perfectly plausible. Which makes sense since it's based on a real tweet from an Iranian resident.

[gwern]

> I don't know what the rest of your comment is talking about. Googling "Yirgacheffe" shows it's a real thing. The Safavid coffee/Qajar tea claims seem accurate as well. So you at least learned something from the article.

No, I didn't learn anything from the article (except how susceptible HN has become to even 4o-level LLM outputs, of course). I learned something from your comment, and you learned that from a Google search. Do you see the difference?

> So the actual content of the article is perfectly plausible.

So in other words... it added nothing to even a superficial familiarity with the topic.

[crazygringo]

Seriously. This article seems to reveal much more about the author than about coffee.

I can't speak about Iran, but getting into coffee is no different from getting into pie-making, or sourdough, or wine, or cocktail-making.

They write:

> Coffee used to be fuel. Now it’s a lifestyle accessory.

I think this is the quote that reveals everything. People don't want just "fuel" anymore. They want something that actually tastes good.

But for some reason the author thinks it's all about marketing, insecurity, and influencers. Can't the author just let people enjoy what they like?

Why does it bother the author so much? Why can't they even imagine it might just be because the coffee tastes better, and it's a relatively inexpensive and fun hobby if you want to get into it? Why do they have to judge people for it instead?