And so it is in the next 10 dairy farms you visit. Each farmer is a female once sent away by her parents to exotic American universities and each of these women has a “Jason” or “Sean” or “Andre” sitting in her home lapping up her finest milk with abandon. All that she has left to offer you – a good-natured merchant who wants to forge a long-term partnership – is sour milk.
Downtrodden, you return to Sorrento. You cannot understand how these women expect to create long-lasting partnerships if they waste their freshest and most precious milk on freeloading roustabouts and playboys.
You must go on with your venture, but you must do so alone. You cannot sell lattes with sour milk. You open your store and proudly sell the finest espresso you can make. The magic blend of espresso and creamy, rich milk – unique in all the world – is off the menu.
You find, however, that when you roast a perfect batch of coffee beans, pump up the steamer with many pounds of pressure and tease the lever of your espresso machine down just right you produce heavenly spouts of creamy espresso. Your abundant crema layers the tops of each cup you serve. Your customers are satisfied, and the cafe is a raging success.
Epilogue:
Within five years, all of the young women operating dairy farms have gone out of business. Their cycle of male companions is replaced by mangy farm cats. The female dairy farmers lacked the capital to replace their fallow dairy cows. Most have been exhiled to the U.S. and have tried to find careers in yoga instruction and child psychology.
A new breed of dairy farmer moves into the outskirts of Sorrento and seems more willing to sell their freshest milk to reliable customers. Strangely enough, they all come from various regions Asia and have never stepped foot on an America university campus.