Articles >> Cappuccino machines signal "upmarket"Cappuccino machines signal "upmarket"
Stop the press. Hold the front page. Cappuccino machines have become media shorthand for "upmarket, trendy and aspirational", it would seem.
Whenever a journalist wants to demonstrate how effete, expensive or middle-class (in a bad way) something it, they are extremely likely to trot out a reference to cappuccino machines. But why is this? Are cappuccino machines making our nation soft - or just the journalists?
Cappuccino machines: making Britain soft?
The Daily Telegraph has, very recently, blamed cappuccino machines for Britain going ‘soft'. "God forbid, the cappuccino machine goes wrong and you might have to whisk your own milk" said Sue Mott in an argument against labour-saving devices in May 2007.
In Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North, writer and journalist Stuart Maconie sees his own possession of a cappuccino maker as evidence that he has betrayed his hardy northern English roots.
Cappuccino machines equal wealth?
In 2003 the Mirror saw the irony in footballer's wife Suzi Walker mentioning her cappuccino machine in a TV documentary - and admitting, "it makes cappuccino but it's never been used". She's got the lifestyle, the newspaper implied, but it's wasted on her.
The BBC isn't averse to the trick. In 2001, it contrasted California's wealthy, high-tech image with an electricity shortage in the state by saying a quick-fix solution "may have turned the cappuccino machines back on for the moment, but does not resolve the underlying crisis".
Cappuccino machines in The Times
The Times has a particular fondness for referring to cappuccino machines. In 2003 it sang the praises of Viennese coffee shops because of the waiters' bow ties and "no shrieking cappuccino machines." The gentrification of Ireland was symbolised in a 2005 article by the arrival of "expensive cappuccino machines" in people's homes. And in 2002, Gillian Bowditch, reflecting on Tony Blair's declaration of the end of the class war, asked, "Were the bourgeosie fleeing with their cappuccino machines to a bunker near Gerrards Cross as he spoke?"
Why this reluctance to think of a new metaphor? The answer was partly provided by the Telegraph in a 2001 article in which the journalist claimed to have found a way to measure which London areas were due for rapid house price increases: the Cappuccino Index.
Why cappuccino machines?
"Why cappuccino?" he said. "It may sound implausible, but I challenge anyone to come forward with a more graphic symbol of gentrification: the sudden availability of frothy, good quality Italian coffee produced from proper chrome machines is a copper-bottomed indication of an imminent middle-class presence in any area." And that may have set the tone for the nation's journalism for the next seven years and counting.
Cappuccino machines do suggest a desire in their owner to make high-quality coffee , but it is unclear why that should be a particularly middle-class craving - does anyone still expect to be served instant coffee in a cafè any more? And with models available for little more than £150, does ownership really signal wealth?
Or are our journalists becoming soft?
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