I recently read an interesting article in a renowned coffee magazine about Coffee Raves and how they have taken over the world. The author claimed that Coffee Raves were breathing new life into ‘third spaces’ that were running out of customers and that events like this were a saving grace for struggling cafés.

It felt so funny to me to read these words after I recently attended my own first Coffee Rave in Barcelona and walked away feeling totally disappointed. For months, I had been hyping up this experience in my head after seeing countless videos of people having wild parties in coffee shops. Heck, I even saw Peggy Gou doing a gig inside a bakery in Amsterdam and my friend Caitlin stunning her with wild Latte Art design. It almost felt too good to be true.

The reality is that nowadays, rave culture is being misappropriated for any kind of cringe white person event, which often has literally zero to do with rave culture. So why call these events raves and are they more than just a fad?

💡 A great idea, in principle

The thing is, I actually really love the idea as such. I am a total proponent of day parties that allow people like me to have a dance and go home at an appropriate hour, in other words, be in bed by midnight.

When I still lived in Amsterdam and before I started my sobriety, day time parties only existed in the form of summer festivals or the occasional illegal rave under a bridge. In winter, there was almost nothing of that kind, except after parties at a friends’, which was often the continuation of the previous night, zombies included.

The truth is also that it’s harder to socialise with people in dark, loud clubs where everyone’s high and usually either hunting for sex or hanging out with their own cliques. Although I did make many lifelong friends during my own rave years, most connections were fleeting. Being able to meet new people in a daytime setting, while drinking coffee and having a dance sounds fun. It’s also very much in line with current trends that prioritise health consciousness, wellness, sobriety and having in-person networking events.

The issue with my experience in Barcelona was the execution.

📝 Terrible coffee, even worse crowd.

The first problem I encountered was that for a Coffee Rave, the coffee itself was really appalling. This event took place in the basement restaurant space of a hotel where bar staff was clearly not well trained, the coffee was poorly prepared and tasted really awful. I did spot a ‘specialty coffee’ roaster sponsorship sign somewhere and there was also a batch brew bar but it was not enough to live up to its name.

My second problem was the crowd. As soon as I walked in, I saw countless bros with sunglasses on, viral-hungry girlies dancing wildly in front of the DJ while filming themselves non-stop and not a single local person anywhere in sight. For the entire two hours I was there, I didn’t hear a word of Spanish or Catalan.

In Spain, there is an expression that is widely used to refer to tourists or expats, guiri. I don’t particularly love this expression but I really felt in that moment that this Coffee Rave was geared entirely to a certain guiri crowd, which I can only describe as utterly cringe.

🧘🏽 Everything’s a rave now

In the weeks that followed, I got bombarded with ads on Instagram from other ‘raves’. One is a Caffeine Rave (same concept but apparently better crowd), a Wellness Rave of some kind and a MiniRave in a forest. Literally every single video showed the same kind of guiri crowd slow dancing to mid tempo beats but none of these had anything to do with real rave culture.

I know I might have a particular point of view here but given my many years of going to real raves in Berghain, Trouw, Now/Wow, Warehouse Project and god knows where else, I find it hard to accept that people call these events raves. Am I being too traditional or intolerant? Should people be allowed to turn everything into a rave even if neither the music nor the space nor the crowd really meet the criteria?

It’s the same conundrum faced by vegan chicken. Why call it vegan chicken when it’s clearly not made from animal products? The reason is that many vegans didn’t stop eating meat because they don’t like it but because they’re against animal cruelty. Many former ravers of my generation didn’t stop raving because we don’t like it but because our lifestyles and priorities have changed. But is a rave in this sense still a rave or should it also be called something else?

💊 Not a magic pill

Admittedly, I consumed a wild mix of party pills when I was raving back in the day. I’m not ashamed to admit it. It was part of the experience and in some ways, what made it a real rave. I rarely met anyone at those parties who was not on something. And this is not to glorify this practice at all, although I am a big proponent of legalizing all drugs. I think this would solve a lot of the world’s crime and problems surrounding drug abuse and homelessness but this is a discussion for another day.

What struck me in this article I referenced earlier was the argument that Coffee Raves can be the golden solution to an ailing coffee business. I do not believe this is true.

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During my recent visit to Bucharest where I hosted a Coffee Quiz at the Coffeast Festival, I spoke to many café owners and roasters. One relatively new café owner said he was concerned about inflation and about many cafés closing. I brought this up during a chat with a world famous Romanian roaster to which he said: “No, it’s only bad cafés that are closing. The good ones are doing very well.”

This is also what I noticed while exploring the local coffee scene in Bucharest. Good coffee shops were buzzing while mediocre ones were empty. Maybe hosting a Coffee Rave can bring a bit of attention and PR to a failing coffee shop but it won’t fix any structural problems behind quality, location, service etc. It might, in fact, simply offer a short term sugar high that will quickly fade once the party’s over.

🤔 How to make Coffee Raves better (an ideal scenario)

OK, I know this is going to sound more like a wish list but we gotta start somewhere, no? Firstly, what I would fix is the whole premise of these Coffee Raves. My ideal morning rave would definitely include a more techno-heavy vibe and fewer Adele and Lana Del Rey remixes. The type of music you play also attracts a certain crowd. I don’t want to feel like I’m at some cringe EDM party in Ibiza but rather Sisyphos in Berlin on Sunday afternoon.

Second, if you’re going to advertise specialty coffee, do it properly. Get skilled baristas who know what they’re doing and make sure you have quality beans. I don’t mind if they pre-batch the espresso shots and serve only batch brews but at least make sure the coffee tastes good. I would also make it clear that there will be no alcohol served at all.

There needs to be a more mixed crowd too. At this Coffee Rave I went to, my friend and I were basically the only gays in the room. The event lacked diversity and inclusion to make it really fun. While I appreciated the idea of picking a bracelet colour to indicate whether you were there to ‘party, talk business or shag’, the encounters we made were really awkward.

One such conversation was started by a man who walked over to us, asked if we were having fun and then proceeded to say to my friend that he was sure he’d met him the night before. When asked what he did the night before he said he’d been on a date. When my friend laughingly said ‘well, not with me’, the guy looked taken aback and quickly said ‘NO HOMO, NO HOMO’ before walking off. Okaaaayyy.

Lastly, any such rave also needs to include more locals. I understand why everyone wants to communicate their events in English but without creating a unique connection to local people, it’ll always just end up being another cringe event for guiris.

Written by Alex Kitain, founder of The Coffeevine