I work at a coffee shop. We serve coffee that is organic, fair trade, shade-grown, vegan, shipped in hemp sacks, transported aboard bio-diesel airplanes, and hand-roasted by inner-city minority youths who are given liberal arts scholarships and are taught yoga. The coffee also supports same-sex marriage, drives a Prius, and donates to NPR. But, surprisingly, it is pro-life. It is complex coffee that resists being pigeonholed.
So that our customers know exactly what they're drinking, we proudly display labels that inform them where the coffee came from and what some of its defining characteristics are. However, some of these labels sound like they're attempting to sum up entire nationalities. Here is an example:
This poses an interesting conundrum since "soft" and "enticing" are adjectives not typically associated with Mexicans. Perhaps a more accurate label would read "wily and prone to dance", or "strong and skilled with a blade".
Some of the labels are a bit more precise. Take a look at this one:
It comes as no surprise that Guatemalans are described as "elegantly balanced" since, due to the mountainous terrain of their home country, a clumsy Guatemalan would not last very long. Also, their rich tradition of dance is nothing short of elegant.
Some of the labels are a tad ambiguous, and thus don't really say much:
Perhaps I could apply a bit of my personal experience to this one. If this Italian Roast coffee shares the "southern Italian tradition" of the Sicilian side of my family, it could be described as "loud and angry" or "distrusting of blacks" or "unwilling to forgive my father for marrying a Jew".
After hours upon hours of gazing ponderously at these coffee labels, I realized that perhaps the world would be easier to comprehend if all types of people were described as succinctly as these labels describe our beans. Here are some examples I came up with:
