How do you like your coffee?

It's a simple question, and yet how often do you get served a coffee which is more to the barista's liking than yours?
Too hot, too cold or even worse, you have to meet certain 'standards', as set by the barista.

This article from the Sydney Morning Herald, Pour diddums . . . you'll get your coffee how we like it, struck a chord with us - for all the wrong reasons.
It gives examples of precious behaviour from Sydney cafes including one in Lilyfield, which has "DIY sugar".

The fear and loathing is not confined to Lilyfield. Elsewhere across Sydney, purist baristas have declared war on skim milk, large cups, Equal, extra hot and other accoutrements they say taint the perfect cup. Bar Italia in Leichardt is famous for its ''No soy, no skim'' stand. Customers have been known to storm out of Barefoot Coffee Traders in Manly which won't do decaf or large cups. Kafenio Cafe in Cronulla declares: ''No skim or babycinos … Don't even ask!''

We haven't even tried to understand this attitude.

We love our coffees, we're proud of the variety of flavours and unique single origins we have been able to introduce to so many new palates.

Ideally, we would like to serve our coffees a couple of degrees cooler, to bring out the flavours more. But we're realists - we know our customers are on the go, heading to work or sport; they want their cup to retain its heat on their drive in.

Does our coffee need four sugars? Three shots of caramel? No, but who are we to decide for others?

''I'm passionately frustrated. I mean, it's a coffee, not a dessert.
''We're not going to tell everyone off, but is the customer always right?''

We're going to go with yes.