Paradox Reviewed!

Paradox Cafe’s seven-week closure at the beginning of this year left the incoming freshman class tragically unaware of the cafe’s menu, and everybody else in need of a refresher. Which drinks are the best? Which should be avoided? What about the pastries? To answer these questions, the Quest sent its most intrepid reporter undercover, armed only with his wits, a nondescript notebook, and a not-insubstantial portion of the newspaper’s allotted funds for the 2023 calendar year. 

First, the good. Likely the best drink on offer at Paradox is its chai latte – warm, fragrant, and spicy-in-a-cinnamon-way-and-not-a-jalapeno-way, Paradox’s chai will be there for you in the bleak Portland winters when you haven’t seen the sun in six weeks and need to teach yourself a semester’s worth of statistics before midnight. I recommend you pair it with the berry Pop Tart; it’s expensive, but dollar-for-dollar it might actually be a better investment than a B.A. from Reed. 

Onto the pretty-okay items. What’s the difference between a latte and a Cappuccino? Nobody knows, but both are pretty safe bets. The mocha was a bit too heavy on the milk and too light on the chocolate, but still made me feel closer to God than a decade of Communion wafers, while the Americano will be perfectly enjoyable to the anarcho-vegans on campus who want to suffer for their caffeine. My technique for drinking the individual shots of espresso was to line three up and slam them back like a recovering alcoholic, so I can’t comment on the taste, but I can say they'll leave you pleasantly buzzed.

Lastly, the not-so-great. Listen, I don’t know what matcha is, or who would invent a drink that looks like it was scraped off the ocean floor and smells like the air around Trillium after the CSOs have all gone to bed, but it is undoubtedly a thing that you could buy. For the record, I don’t blame the quality of this drink on Paradox, and certainly not on the poor barista who probably suffered more making it than I did drinking it, but on the damaged individual who decided to market the clippings of a pernicious weed as a beverage. 

Personally, I don’t go to Paradox for its drinks, which tend to be less consistent than the ones from Canyon Cafe. I go to Paradox because it’s Paradox. Everything inside, from the photo strips of semi-nude and fully-drunk students pinned to the cork boards, the psychedelic art for sale, and the army of dedicated student workers holding, year after year, the line against the administration’s unreasonable demands of financial solvency, make it clear to anybody who walks inside that Paradox could only exist at Reed, and only because of Reedies. 

10/10, would blow the Quest’s money again.