Flickr: BenjaminThompson 
 
 WASHINGTON -- In a coffeeshop, do customers have a right to bad taste? 
 
 That's been a hot topic of discussion in the nation's capital this week after a barista refused to make an espresso-over-ice drink for a customer who ordered one. 
 
 Him: “We don’t do that because it will ruin it. We make the best espresso in the city and putting it over ice will shock it.” Me: [long pause] “Really?” Him: “Aww… did I just ruin your day?” Me: “So you can’t make this drink?” Him: “No.” 
 
 From Prince of Petworth, which published a play-by-play rundown of the incident at Chinatown Coffee Co. 
 
 It's certainly not the first time espresso-over-ice has sparked a fiery debate online in the nation's capital. 
 
 Back in 2008, then-D.C. resident Jeff Simmermon, tried to order the drink at the Clarendon location of the now-closed Murky Coffee, where a barista expressed hesitation in making it. Simmermon took to his blog and documented the incident for the whole world to see. 
 
 I interrupted. “You’re goddamned right you can’t stop me,” I said. “I happen to have a personal policy that prohibits me from indulging stupid bullshit like this — and another personal policy of doing what I want with the products I pay for.” Then I looked him right in his big wide eyes and poured the espresso onto the ice. 
 
 His rant went viral and thrusted the fiery debate into the national spotlight. 
 
 No modifications to the Classic Cappuccino. No questions will be answered about the $5 Hot Chocolate (during the months we offer it). No espresso in a to-go cup. No espresso over ice. These are our policies. We have our reasons, and we're happy to share them. 
 
 Murky Coffee detailed additional house rules in an open letter to Simmermon 
 
 As The Washington Post wrote of the "bitter" incident: "Who knew a cup of coffee could create such a tempest in a teapot?" 
 
 What do you think? ||||| Photo by PoPville flickr user Mylar Bono 
 
 Dear PoPville, 
 
 I was refused service at Chinatown Coffee Co. in DC, a neighborhood establishment that I frequent quite often. Why? I ordered three shots of espresso over ice. What I didn’t realize is that espresso and ice is a huge controversy among coffee critics. Where there is no disagreement, however, is that customers are still king – even in an indie/hipster coffee shop. It was disappointing, to say the least, the barista, refused my business and then insulted me on the way out the door. A similar encounter is offered in this blog post about Murky Coffee in Arlington. 
 
 Here is the play-by-play in my Yelp review: 
 
 Here’s the play-by-play for anyone who’s interested (including the management): 
 
 Him: “Hi. What can I get for you?” 
 
 Me: “I’d like 3 shots of espresso over a cup of ice to go.” 
 
 Him: “I can’t do that. I could make you an americano instead. I has water in it.” 
 
 Me: “No thanks. I’d like a cup with ice with 3 shots of espresso poured over it.” 
 
 Him: “We don’t do that because it will ruin it. We make the best espresso in the city and putting it over ice will shock it.” 
 
 Me: [long pause] “Really?” 
 
 Him: “Aww… did I just ruin your day?” 
 
 Me: “So you can’t make this drink?” 
 
 Him: “No.” 
 
 Before I had even said another word, he had already walked away. ||||| Back in the mid-1960s, the owner of the Brickskeller, that early early adopter of craft beer near Dupont Circle, spent $100,000 to create the robot bartender. Apparently Feliz J. Coja just couldn't find enough talented barkeeps to staff his joint. 
 
 Since then, companies have twisted themselves into knots trying to develop machines to displace those fallible, all-too-human employees who produce, cook and serve our food and drinks. So we have conveyor belts for sushi, automatons for waiters, robotic noodle makers and even Hortibots for planting seeds, to name just a few. 
 
 
 
 Barista in a Box. Briggo's new "intelligent" Coffee Haus at the University of Texas. (Casey Dunn/Briggo Coffee Haus) 
 
 Today, the Austin-based Briggo Coffee introduced one more inanimate object to satisfy our cravings: the "intelligent" Coffee Haus on the campus of the University of Texas. The fully automated kiosk allows customers to place pre-orders via smartphone and receive a text when their caffeinated drinks are ready, "eliminating the long waits and variability typical of standard coffee shops," according to a Briggo release. 
 
 The company's robotics, which "emulate the motions of a champion barista," will grind and brew each drink to order, using direct-trade beans, fresh milk and "gourmet" syrups. “Our Coffee Haus creates artisan coffee drinks 24/7 with a level of accuracy never before seen in the coffee world," Kevin Nater, Briggo's chief executive officer, said in the release today. 
 
 Briggo sees its UT operation as a template for many such robotic coffee shops in airports, hospitals, college campuses and the like. Translation: You may never again have to wait on a tat-stamped barista who's sneering at you for ordering a double mocha latte with extra whip. 
 
 Some local coffee shop owners had mixed reactions upon hearing about Briggo's mechanical plan to overtake the Starbucks of the world. 
 
 "Here's the problem," e-mailed Joel Finkelstein, the owner and roaster behind Qualia Coffee in Petworth. "Coffee is a natural product and by that token highly variable depending on both agricultural factors and post-harvest processing. In addition, the brewing properties of freshly roasted coffee changes day-by-day, hour-by-hour." 
 
 "In my experience," Finkelstein continued, "I have never come across an automated coffee maker that deals well with fresh roasted coffee. A human being can learn to compensate for the eccentricities of the brewing process, but for a machine to apply the skills of a trained barista in a consistent manner, consistency also has to be imposed on the coffee. This is achieved by blending it to homogeneity, roasting it to death or allowing it to stale, all of which yield a predictably bland cup of coffee." 
 
 I checked with a PR representative with Briggo, who noted the company currently sells only a single, medium-to-dark roast coffee, blended with beans from Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia. The robot doesn't do single-origin coffees, but it does prepare everything from an espresso to an iced chai latte. 
 
 Bean and roast qualities aside,Chinatown Coffee Co. founder Max Brown likes at least one aspect of the Briggo Coffee Haus: its pre-ordering system. Brown says his customers sometimes have to wait seven minutes in line just to order a drink, not to mention the time required to brew it. Personally, he'd love to install a front-end ordering system but doesn't have the time or capital required to design such a smartphone app. 
 
 "There's no reason to have to wait in a line for drinks in this day and age," he says. Perhaps, Brown wonders, Briggo will eventually license its smartphone app to other users? He'd license it for Chinatown in a heartbeat. 
 
 As for the coffee itself, Brown says there is a market for Briggo's robotically served drinks. It just won't be the same people who desire the specialty coffee experience found at shops such as Chinatown, Qualia and the Wydown. 
 
 "I applaud their innovation," he says. But "you can't compare it to a [specialty] coffee shop. It's like comparing a Yugo to a Ferrari. But if you compare it to their peer group, I think they'll be first in class."
– A barista in Washington, DC, has unintentionally raised a philosophical quandary by rejecting the idea that the customer is always right. When a guy asked for espresso on ice, the barista flat out refused, the Huffington Post reports via a Prince of Petworth transcript. "We don’t do that because it will ruin it. We make the best espresso in the city and putting it over ice will shock it," the barista at Chinatown Coffee Co. reportedly said. When the customer seemed befuddled, the barista replied, "Aw, did I just ruin your day?" HuffPo notes that a few years back, a disgruntled customer blogged about another coffee shop's rejection of his request for the same drink. As the post gathered traction, the shop released a statement of its rules, including: "No espresso in a to-go cup. No espresso over ice. These are our policies. We have our reasons, and we're happy to share them."