A Cafe in Australia Offers Deconstructed Coffee in Glass Beakers

For coffee aficionados, a trip to a cafe is usually a chance to have a latte or cappuccino expertly prepared by a skilled barista. But according to one irate customer, a coffee shop in Australia offers a different, more complicated experience. Instead of being served a finished beverage, customers are reportedly given a "deconstructed coffee" consisting of three beakers filled with milk, water, and espresso.

Writer Jamila Rizvi inadvertently ordered the drink during a trip to Melbourne and shared her contempt for the idea on Facebook, commenting that "hipsterism has gone too far when your coffee comes deconstructed." Rizvi says she waited for 20 minutes for a cup to drink the concoction from before realizing that it was not going to arrive. "I prefer to drink my beverages out of crockery and not beakers," she wrote, adding that she didn't order a "science experiment."

While deconstructed meals are not exactly a new concept in the culinary world, they are usually technical dishes that require at least some preparation and creativity on the part of the chef, not just a DIY presentation with a spoon and three beakers. Rizvi told Mashable that the beverage costs about the same as a normal cup, but she found the way it was served "confusing."

Rizvi refrained from naming the cafe in her now-viral post, so curious tourists in Melbourne will have to find it on their own. But for adventurous coffee drinkers in the U.S., there's at least one cafe with a similar drink on its menu: As the BBC notes, Slate Coffee Roasters in Seattle serves a deconstructed latte.