Jeff Simmermon, 32, hails from Brooklyn and considers his right to drink coffee anyway he wants to be a fundamental right.

But he couldn't have anticipated the furore that a simple request for an iced espresso would cause when he walked into the door of Murky Coffee, which has a stringent list of rules about what customers can and cannot ask for.

Viewers of Seinfeld will probably be having visions of the 'Soup Nazi' when they read the following:

"We have some policies at Murky Coffee," said Nicholas Cho, owner of the coffeeshop.

"No modifications to the Classic Cappuccino."

"No questions will be answered about the $5 Hot Chocolate (during the months we offer it)."

"No espresso in a to-go cup."

"No espresso over ice."

"These are our policies."

"We have our reasons, and we’re happy to share them."

Out-of-towner Simmermon thus had no idea of what was waiting for him when he walked into Murky Coffee and asked for his usual summertime tipple of iced espresso.

"I’m sorry, we can’t serve iced espresso here," said the barista.

"It’s against our policy."

"Okay,” replied Simmermon, "I’ll have a triple espresso and a cup of ice, please."

That didn't violate their rules, so he was served the drink and as he prepared to mix it with ice, the barista took the opportunity to admonish him.

"Hey man, what you’re about to do...that’s really, really not okay," said David Flynn, the barista working on the counter.

"This is our store policy, to preserve the integrity of the coffee."

"It’s about the quality of the drink, and diluting the espresso is really not cool with us."

"So I mean, you’re going to do what you’re going to do, and I can’t stop you, but-"

"You’re goddamned right you can’t stop me,” Simmermon interrupted.

"I happen to have a personal policy that prohibits me from indulging stupid bullshit like this -- and another personal policy of doing what I want with the products I pay for."

He then proceeded to mix the two and set off something of a storm in a coffee cup.

His parting shot was to leave a $1 bill as a tip, inscribed with the legend: 'Fuck you and your precious coffee policy.'

Simmermon went on to blog about the incident at his site andiamnotlying.com -- which eventually got a reaction from Murky Coffee's owner.

But far from vindicating him, Cho's pretentious language only seems to confirm Simmermon's opinion that Murky Coffee are too 'precious' about coffee.

"The fact is, there's a lot more to coffee than people think, and there was a time that a career position like a 'sommelier' was completely absurd (before wine became 'fancy') too," Cho said.

"There's a craft to coffee, that most people haven't been exposed to."

"When we first opened our shop, nobody had ever seen 'latte art' before, or was thinking about coffee bean varietals."

"Just as the average person understands at least that a 'merlot' is different from a 'chardonnay', maybe someday people will understand that a coffee brewed from bourbon varietal from a particular coffee farm in El Salvador is different from a particular lot of Yirgacheffe from Ethiopia."

"Right now, to most people, coffee is coffee, just like a Diet Coke is a Diet Coke."

Cho clearly believes that keeping the integrity of his coffee is better than keeping his customers.

"To others reading this I will say that if you don't like the policies, I respectfully recommend that you find some other place that will give you what you want, or select something that we can offer you," he said.

For his part, Simmeron is ambiguous about his reaction to the incident.

"I have mixed feelings about it, and I'm not really proud of the behaviour that triggered this," he said.

"These things take on a life of their own, and I don't want to be a part of it."

"He had a bad day, the owner had a bad day, and I had a bad day."

"That's all."