I love, love, love this idea that started locally in a Windsor coffee shop. Instead of buying for the person behind you, who can obviously afford their own coffee, you pay it forward for someone who can’t.
The idea of a “suspended coffee” started in Naples, Italy. In Italian it’s called cafe sospeso. You pay for two coffees but only take one and the cafe keeps track of how many suspended coffees there are. Someone in need comes in and asks if there’s a suspended coffee available and voila, you’ve paid it forward.
The manager of the Windsor shop, Mashup Kaffe, says it’s not uncommon for someone from a nearby youth centre to come in and try to order a partial cup of tea because they can’t afford a whole one. With suspended coffee – or tea – they can fill their cup.
Will people abuse it? I doubt it but maybe a few will. Does it matter? Not really. The giver never meets the recipient and the good feeling they get will not diminish if the occasional person who can afford it grabs a free coffee. How nice to know that on a cold day someone without a toonie to their name could go into a nice shop and get a hot beverage. I hope the suspended coffee catches on.
I don’t recall all the details, but something similar occurred at various Tim Hortons across Canada late last year but have know idea if its still occurring and if so how widely.
I think you might be mistaken about that. An Edmonton man paid for 500 people at a Tim Hortons last year. But most big chains are on record as saying they think suspended coffee is a bad idea mainly because it hurts their egos to be considered too cheap to give someone in need a coffee for free!