I have always loved driving back up to Oxford. In the past year and a bit, Oxford really has become my home: I’ve spent more time here than I have in the town that I grew up in. But at the start of Hilary, something felt wrong. Heartbreak, stress, lack of revision – whatever it was, it was keeping me from feeling any kind of excitement at the prospect of being back in my room at college.

When my mum turned to leave after dropping me off, I blurted out, “let’s get a coffee first,” desperate to say something to make her stay just a little longer. We were opposite Common Ground, so I said, “you have to try this place. It’s very Oxford.”

As we sat in Common Ground – a dirty chai for me, a latte for her – I started telling her about the community events and the general hubbub in the café. Not that I ever involve myself in it all. I was reminded of the revolutionary ‘coffee house’, a place to spread new ideas of liberty and work on treatises. 

Coffee houses played an important role in history. They were how revolution spread. And now, I take my laptop to the local café, I order a matcha, and I study those revolutions. Funny how that works.

I’ve never liked libraries. It’s funny, because roughly this time last year I told you all: “my college library consumes my soul.” Oh, how second year has changed me. I feel very self-conscious when I’m in the library. As though every breath is a shout. Every rustle deafens. Every letter typed on my laptop is the stomping of a giant. The quiet of a library terrifies me. The library is a place I can only enter after 10 p.m., when I am sure I can be alone.

Cafés have people enjoying their people-y lives. They go about their days, catching up with friends, catching up on work, having not caught up on sleep and replacing tiredness with caffeine. I fear that the older I get, the more like Lorelai Gilmore I become – to quote her: “coffee, coffee, coffee!” 

It’s delightful, sitting with a little drink and maybe a sandwich or a cookie. Typing up an essay as people mill around. Allowing yourself a little people-watching break in between paragraphs. Fuelled by caffeine; relaxed by the calming, charming environment; not self-conscious about the noise I’m making because it’ll never be as bad as the obnoxious Americans gossiping in the corner. True and utter bliss. I put my headphones on and I am at peace.

Cafés are also fantastic meeting places. The company I work for during the summer holds all of their interim report sessions and even interviews in various cafes around Oxford. It puts me at ease. A free drink on them also sweetens things (even when I’m being told off for being late). There’s also something very useful about a cup of coffee. It lets you collect your thoughts, without making the silence awkward. It’s an interrogation technique: never talk first. Sipping some coffee allows for that without making things awkward – particularly during difficult conversations. Or sometimes, if I’m extracting gossip, and the other person clearly wants to tell me, I’ll just slowly sip my coffee – wait for them to crack. It works. 

Unfortunately, my love of cafés is not shared by my bank account. £3.80 for a coffee adds up quickly. I will forever mourn the Pret subscription: £30 a month for five free coffees per day. Perhaps that is why I am now hooked on caffeine. But oh, it was bliss. The youth of today (and by youth, I mean Freshers) will never know what it’s like to spend all day in Tudor Pret, post an Oxfess about the hot barista, and then submit your essay in time for Park End at Atik (it’s not the same at Bridge. It’s just not). The awful, awful coffee they served us at Pret. The fact that the toilets were so often out of order. The wonky tables. The old men who would sometimes stare at you for half an hour. What a life we had. 

I write this article in a café and look around me. Some people chatting, one guy frantically typing as though his life depends on it, probably several other people here who work at a newspaper writing and editing articles just like I am. It’s a discordant community that we have here. I wouldn’t trade it in for anything. 

I know I could make coffee that’s just as good in my kitchen at college. I know I could work in my room and not have to worry about noise. It would save me a significant amount of money. But I’d lose all this charm. Some things are simply too wonderful to give up.