I, like many other college students, love coffee. Coffee has been a cornerstone of my college experience, having a key presence in the nights before exams and being an integral part of many hangouts with my friends at various cafes. Every year, I eagerly anticipate the release of seasonal flavors, especially Philz Coffee’s Winter Bliss and Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice (not sponsored). I know that a great iced latte from Harper Cafe can make any day better. I remember being a young high student trying coffee for the first time and slowly learning to love it, mostly out of necessity. Yet, when I think about my journey with coffee, many not so pleasant memories surface as well, involving an unusual character: gender.

One of the first people to bring gender into the equation of ordering a coffee in my life was my father. My dad, a cishet white man from rural Illinois, never fails to comment on my sister or I’s coffee order. Or, when accompanying us to Starbucks or other local coffee shops, he never fails to remark on how “froufrou and girly” those Starbucks drinks are (a direct quote). But he wants to try a Starbucks drink, he brings along my sister or I and makes us order for him, even if we are sitting in the passenger seat of the car in the drive through, because he, a man, cannot possibly understand how to order a Starbucks menu item even if I hand him the phone with the menu item clearly displayed. A woman has to order for him. Apart from these rare occasions, my father insists on only drinking black coffee, because, in his words,
“real men drink black coffee.”

Surprisingly, my father is not the only person who equate “real” masculinity to drinking black coffee. A simple google search containing the words “black coffee masculine” results in thousands of relevant results, including articles like “Is it manly to drink black coffee? Yes!” fron the Considered Man, “Drinking Black Coffee Like a Man” from the BeanFruit Coffee Company, and “Why People Who Drink Black Coffee Are Superior To Those Who Don’t” from the BroBible.

In “Is it manly to drink black coffee? Yes!,” the author presents 11 reasons black coffee is inherently masculine. I found the article to be quite humorous, especially because the author  fails to provide data or references to support the claims within the article, including that black coffee is too strong for women to handle as well as the claims on the about caffeine content side effects. The last line of point one states clearly, “Strong and bold coffee is for a man, and while some women can stomach it, most tend to stay away from it because it is too strong for them.” Point three expands on this idea that men tolerate the “strength” of black coffee more than women by arguing that women are more sensitive to caffeine, yet again, provides no material evidence for this claim. The author also makes an interesting claim that a man who drinks black coffee “has what it takes to be a man who works hard and doesn’t give up when things are rough”. Point 9 of the article seems to really be the central claim of the list, stating “Black coffee is the epitome of manliness because it is associated with toughness and dominance.” The reasoning provided is that a man who drinks black coffee shows his strength by weathering the “side effects” the author claims the drink has and relates this survival to increased work production. The author references the ability to work throughout the list, and it seems that the ability to work, and work hard, is a core facet of manliness to the author, and black coffee increases this productivity, therefore increasing manliness. This article, as mentioned before, does not reference data or other works on the topic. It seems instead to rely on stereotypes in society that the author perceives.

But why? Why is black coffee associated with masculinity? In an interview with Vice, Erika Vonie, a Q Certified grader, Coffee Masters Champion, and Director of Coffee at Trade said this about the social gendering of coffee: “I think our society kind of has it beaten into our heads that if you want to be this strong masculine type, you drink black coffee. Anything that is sweet and sugary is considered non-masculine. It’s kind of this ‘sugar and spice and everything nice. That’s what little girls are made of.” This trend extends beyond coffee to many areas of consumerism. As the Vice article points out, there is a duality in marketing based on gender perceptions about audiences. Whiskey, espresso, cold brew and other items are marketed as “complex,” “strong,” and “meant for an elevated palate,” while rosé, cupcakes, and specialty lattes are “for women” and “basic.” A great example of this is the initial public reaction to the pumpkin spice latte, which faced huge controversy in the media in the early to mid 2010s, mostly because they were marketed towards women’s “unrefined” palates. Marketing and design of products within the coffee industry significantly contribute to the on-going perception about the gender of coffee products. Many of these decision are based in the same stereotypes and beliefs they reinforce, creating this almost inescapable cycle. 

In the eyes of my father and the authors of these articles, coffee choice is a key outward sign indicating gender performance. The purchase and consumption of the beverage in cafes, workplaces, and homes reinforces their identity as men in their own eyes, and they perceive that this also reinforces their gender in the eyes of others. However, black coffee is not a universal indicator of masculinity. To many people, including a few friends I discussed this blog with, coffee choice is about personal preference and has no relation to gender at all.

In personal reflection, I find the relation of coffee choice to gender to be a bit humorous. Why can’t we just let people enjoy what they like without imbuing stigma or a deeper meaning to such trivial choices? Speaking for my father, I can infer he learned this behavior from the society he grew up in and the people around him. He grew up in a different time (1970s-1980s in his adolescence) and a vastly different culture to my own childhood. He learned from a society with heavy emphasis on traditional gender roles and spent a large portion of his early life in a firehouse with his father. Firehouse culture in the United States is a whole separate topic for exploration, but it does put great emphasis on (at the time and still now in some places) groups entirely composed of men gathering around black coffee and performing labor. This correlation between coffee and gender is still quite prevalent in many places around the U.S. today, and it is an interesting exploration of how performing gender works on a very small level.