My petty gripe: I don’t begrudge your coffee addiction – but do you have to be such a bore about it?

I get it: you really like coffee. And you have an addiction. I’m not judging that. You’re beholden to Big Bean, hopelessly hooked on the world’s most consumed psychotropic drug. But, err, do you have to be such a bore about it?

Does it really need a mention on your dating profile, as though a fondness for hot brown liquid is a personality trait?

Is a coffee not truly a coffee unless it’s conjured from scratch by a barista? And do you really need to be such a grump in the morning if you don’t get it?

Should you really be entitled to an extra hour’s work break so you can stand in a lengthy cafe queue both morning and afternoon? (Before you delay yet another work meeting in favour of a protracted caffeine-foraging mission, let me introduce you to the office espresso machine and – don’t give me that look – this jar of instant coffee.)

Sure, you want an excuse to gossip with your colleagues*, get some fresh air, get your daily steps in or leave your lonely work-from-home station to have the only in-person interaction you’ll have all day. All very worthy causes.

But then on the weekend you’ll make me tag along with you while you search for another overpriced cafe coffee just 20 minutes after you imbibed the first because the milk in the first cup of joe was under-steamed and you simply can’t continue with your day until you’ve overridden that abomination with a quality flat white.

Or on our camping trip you’ll snub the moka pot-brewed campfire coffee and jump in your car and drive out of the wilderness to the nearest town to buy an artisanal long black in a takeaway cup. Waiting for you to return from your one-and-a-half-hour round trip ate up most of our precious morning, Peter!

Granted, I don’t know much about latte art, but I do know swans belong at liberty on shimmering lakes, not confined atop your morning beverage.

As the world descends deeper into economic hardship, environmental doom and the clutches of authoritarian nutjobs, coffee snobbery inexplicably endures and strengthens, like cockroaches after the apocalypse.

Apologies if I sound a bit bitter, tired and irritable, as though I have a mild headache coming on. Perhaps a shot of single-origin locally roasted ristretto will sort me out.

* This article does not reflect any of my Guardian Australia colleagues – I love you all