My Week in Coffee Shops: The 10 Things That Earned a Place in the Bag
The flat was being painted, so I worked a week from café tables. The bag, the dark corner, the steam wand, the one socket — and the ten things that made it work.
10 products9 min read
The flat I couldn’t work in
The painters arrived on a Monday in October and told me the flat would smell for a week. I have one job, one laptop and no office to go to, so I did what everyone does and went to the café on the corner with the laptop in a tote bag.
By Monday lunchtime the laptop had a scratch from my keys. By Tuesday afternoon my neck hurt and the laptop was hot enough to warm my wrists. On Wednesday a steam wand went off during the only call that mattered that week. On Thursday I watched two strangers negotiate over a wall socket like it was a parking space.
I bought things as the week went wrong, which is not how anyone would plan it, but it does mean each of these earned its place on a specific day. Here they are in that order.
Monday — what goes in the bag
The tote bag was the first mistake. A laptop in a tote bag with keys, a water bottle and a charger is a laptop that gets scratched, and a charger that gets lost at the bottom with the receipts. Monday evening I ordered three things for the simple job of carrying a computer across town.
The bag with a pocket against my back
The BANGE 15.6-inch laptop backpack, about $33, is a slim black backpack with a padded laptop compartment against the back panel, a front pocket the right size for a charger, and a pass-through for a cable to a phone in the side pocket. The laptop sits flat against my spine instead of swinging in a tote, and the bag is light enough that a twenty-minute walk with it did not register. It is slim by design: a laptop, a jumper and lunch fill it. I tried to add a second pair of shoes on the Friday and could not.
BANGE Lightweight 15.6-inch Laptop Backpack
$33.49
The sleeve that took the knock for it
The protective laptop sleeve, about $12 in the 13-to-15.6-inch size, is a padded zip case the laptop lives in inside the backpack. On Wednesday the bag tipped off a chair onto a tiled floor and the laptop was fine, which is the whole review. On a table that had seen a lot of syrup, the sleeve went down first and the laptop sat on it. Get the size that matches your screen exactly; a sleeve with room to slide around is a sleeve that lets the laptop hit the end.
Protective Laptop Sleeve (13 to 15.6 inch)
$11.55
The pouch for the small things
The BANGE mini electronics organizer pouch, about $11, is a small zipped case that holds the charger, one cable and the earbuds. It went in the front pocket of the backpack and stayed there, which meant that on Thursday morning I knew where the charger was without emptying the bag onto a café table. It is small: the charger and its cable fill it, and there is no room for a second brick, which I came to see as the point.
BANGE Mini Electronics Pouch
$10.85
The bag arrived on the Wednesday, which tells you how the first two days went. Tuesday I was still in the tote, and Tuesday was the table.
Tuesday — the table problem
The café had one table near a socket and it was the worst table in the room: a low marble thing in a corner where the light didn’t reach, under a shelf of plants. I sat there because of the socket, and by eleven my neck hurt from looking down and my wrists were warm from a laptop that was working hard on a surface that didn’t let it breathe. I could not fix the height. I could fix the dark and the paper cups.
The lamp that didn’t need the socket
The Baseus rechargeable LED clip lamp, about $11, is a battery lamp on a bendy neck that clamps to the edge of a table and dims by touch. It clipped onto the marble on Wednesday morning and lit the keyboard, which under the plant shelf had been a guess. It runs off its own battery, so it did not need the one socket everyone wanted; on low it lasted the working day, and on full brightness it was closer to an afternoon, so it charged every night with the phone. It is a reading lamp, not a room light, and in a bright café by the window it would be pointless. In the corner, it was the difference between squinting and working.
Baseus Rechargeable LED Clip Lamp (Dimmable)
$10.75
The cup that stopped the paper cups
The stainless steel insulated cold cup with a straw, about $8, is a double-walled steel tumbler for iced coffee and water. Before it, by three o’clock the marble table had four sweating paper cups on it and the laptop was in a puddle. With it, I ordered one iced coffee into the cup in the morning, filled it with water at the counter after, and the table stayed dry. It is a cold-drink cup: a hot coffee through a metal straw is a mistake you make exactly once, and I did.
Stainless Steel Insulated Cold Cup with Straw (600 ml)
$8.39
By Tuesday evening the corner table was lit and dry and I’d stopped resenting it. Wednesday was the day I’d been dreading, because Wednesday had the call.
Wednesday — calls and steam wands
I had one call that week that mattered, at two in the afternoon, and I took it on the laptop’s speakers and microphone in a café with an espresso machine six metres away. The person on the other end asked me to repeat myself three times. The third time, the steam wand went off mid-sentence and I watched them flinch. I ordered earbuds from the table, before the call was over.
The earbuds that heard me over the grinder
The QCY MeloBuds N65 adaptive noise-cancelling earbuds, about $37, arrived Thursday morning and I took the follow-up call on them. The noise cancelling turned the room from a roar into a hum, and the microphones did the thing I actually needed, which was to pick my voice out of that hum so the other person heard a sentence instead of a café. They sat in my ears for a two-hour stretch without complaint. What they don’t do is erase a grinder two metres away; for the important ten minutes I moved to the far end of the room, and that plus the earbuds was enough. They are not a $250 pair and will not fool anyone on an aeroplane, but a coffee shop is a lower bar than an aeroplane.
QCY MeloBuds N65 Adaptive ANC Earbuds (HT21)
$37.05
The plugs for the hours between calls
The Eayburst soft silicone earplugs, about $8 for the set, are what I wore the rest of the time. Most of the day in a café isn’t calls, it’s writing, and for writing I don’t want music; I want less. The silicone plugs took the edge off the room without a battery to run down, and they are so small they live in the pouch’s zip pocket. They muffle rather than silence, and they took me two days to stop noticing in my ears. For the price of two coffees they bought back about half the room’s noise.
Eayburst Reusable Silicone Ear Plugs (Carry Case)
$8.33
With the calls sorted, the only thing left to fight about was power, and on Thursday I did.
Thursday — one outlet all day
The café had two sockets for perhaps twenty seats, and by ten both were taken, one by a laptop and one by a phone on a cable so short the phone sat on the floor. I watched the person with the phone and the person who wanted the socket come to a quiet arrangement, and I decided I would rather be the person who arrives with a solution than the one who has to negotiate.
The brick with its own cable
The Baseus 6-in-1 GaN travel charger, about $37, is a single block with a USB-C cable that pulls out of its body on a reel, two more USB ports, and a mains socket on the back. Plugged into the one free socket, it charged the laptop from the built-in cable and the phone from a port at the same time, and the socket on its back meant I had not actually taken a socket away from anyone. There was no separate cable to forget because the cable lives in the charger. It is heavier than a plain phone brick, and the travel-adapter pins are more than I need for a café on my own street; on a trip they’d be the whole point.
Baseus 6-in-1 GaN Travel Adapter (45W, Retractable USB-C Cable)
$36.69
The cube I used to make friends
The LENCENT 7-in-1 wall socket extender, about $17, is a cube that turns one socket into three mains outlets and four USB ports. I plugged it into the café’s socket on Thursday afternoon, plugged my own charger into one side, and offered the other outlets to the two tables near me. One took it, said thanks, and bought me a coffee later. It sticks straight out of the wall, so it needs a socket that isn’t behind a bench, and the one I ordered is the EU-plug version; check the plug type for where you live before ordering.
LENCENT 7-in-1 Wall Socket Extender (3 AC, 4 USB)
$17.09
The meter that settled an argument with myself
The ATORCH USB-C PD capacity meter, about $14, is a small inline screen that shows how many watts are actually flowing through a cable. I bought it out of suspicion. The café had a USB port built into the wall by my corner table, and I had spent Tuesday wondering why the laptop still ran down while plugged into it. On Thursday I put the meter between the port and the cable and watched it read a little over four watts — enough to slow the drain on a phone, not enough to register on a laptop. That is a curiosity more than a necessity, and I would not call it essential; but it ended two days of wondering in ten seconds, and now I know not to bother with café USB ports at all.
ATORCH USB-C PD Capacity Meter (8A)
$14.19
Friday was easy. I arrived with the bag, took the dark corner table on purpose, clipped the lamp to the marble, plugged the cube into the socket, filled the cup, put the plugs in and worked until four. The painters finished Friday evening. I have been back to the corner table twice since, by choice.
What I’d leave at home
Everything in this story
BANGE Lightweight 15.6-inch Laptop Backpack
$33.49
Protective Laptop Sleeve (13 to 15.6 inch)
$11.55
BANGE Mini Electronics Pouch
$10.85
Baseus Rechargeable LED Clip Lamp (Dimmable)
$10.75
Stainless Steel Insulated Cold Cup with Straw (600 ml)
$8.39
QCY MeloBuds N65 Adaptive ANC Earbuds (HT21)
$37.05
Eayburst Reusable Silicone Ear Plugs (Carry Case)
$8.33
Baseus 6-in-1 GaN Travel Adapter (45W, Retractable USB-C Cable)
$36.69
LENCENT 7-in-1 Wall Socket Extender (3 AC, 4 USB)
$17.09
ATORCH USB-C PD Capacity Meter (8A)
$14.19
Everything here comes to about $188. Prices in USD; they move a little from week to week.
Frequently asked questions
What should I pack to work from a coffee shop all day?
A bag with a padded laptop pocket, one charger that does the laptop and the phone, noise-cancelling earbuds for calls, and something to drink from that isn't a paper cup. Everything else is comfort. My full week kit came to about $188, and the bag, the earbuds and the charger were about $107 of it.
Are cheap noise-cancelling earbuds good enough for work calls?
Yes, for a café. The pair in this story cost about $37, cut the room hum enough that I stopped asking people to repeat themselves, and the microphones picked up my voice over a grinder. They will not match a $250 pair on an aeroplane; in a coffee shop that is not the test.
How do I charge a laptop in a café with one socket?
Bring one charger that handles the laptop and the phone together and a small socket extender so you can share the plug instead of fighting for it. The café's own USB ports, where they exist, gave my laptop almost nothing — I measured it.
Do I need a laptop sleeve if I have a laptop backpack?
Yes, if the bag will go on the floor. A padded sleeve inside the bag takes the knock when the bag tips over on tiles, and it doubles as a mat on a sticky table. Mine cost about $12 and was the cheapest insurance in the kit.
How long does shipping take?
Allow two to three weeks. Most of this ships from overseas and arrives in one to three weeks, so order it before the renovation starts, not on the Monday morning you're locked out of the flat.