I didn’t need the coffee having spent a chunk of the morning at Sorella’s contemplating french toast (I got the Texas, Josh got challah, Linda got pumpkin bread), and a bottomless cup of coffee. However, I was in Central Sq., and therefore it was neccessary to make a pilgrimage to 1369.

“A cup of the Colombian, black, to go.”, I anticipated the questions (1369 asks you more questions per cup of drip coffee, then almost any other coffee shop), and I got the classic 1369 white coffee cup, with lavender logo stamped, on the side, and a white “Oh my god, what the hell is that?” lid.

My coffee came with something white, and bulbous, larger then your average coffee cup lid, and with oddly canted sides. It clearly subscribed to the modern design sensibility of bulges (which renders cars, and eletronics looking like Nike sneakers), and it seemed to be one of the obnoxious lids you get at delis and gas stations where you have to punch out a piece of the plastic, rather then have a sensibly small, but oblong opening. (the oblong, almost liver shaped opening of a coffee cup lid is important when drinking very hot coffee, as it give you enough area to create a small vacuum, sucking the coffee through the air, rapidly cooling it). I tried punching out the area in the front for a while, and then pulling at the fin on the back of the lid, then tugging on the tab that ran along the lid’s edge. Without luck.

Then my brain kicked in. Actually what I was supposed to do was slide the fin to the side, a smooth motion that rotated open the cup, allowing me to drink the coffee (from a slightly too small opening), and then swivel it shut again. So was my first encounter with the Solo Cup Company’s Traveler Plus(tm). It felt like a coffee cup lid designed for the 1950s World Expo, long on moving parts, and curves, clearly a whiz bang idea, but its bulky, odd lines feeling more like a prototype then a finished product. It is the latest thing in cup lid technology, and Solo advertises it as “upscale”, but for my money, I think the classiest look is the TL31B

This is the 1,369th post on this blog and is dedicated to Boston coffee shops, past, present, and future.