Remind me what all that guff about 'localism' actually means ...

If the demand is for [igood[/i coffee then Starbucks don't qualify anyway.

True. Isn't it all just brewed in a big Vat?

I like my coffee strong and black - but drinkable.



Its been some time since I last supped in a Starbucks but along with the motorway Costa's that I've stopped at I find invariably that the "barista" (lol) tends to get thrown a little when you ask for a plain black coffee and what you get is something that is far too hot to drink for ten minutes (usually still at steam temperature when its handed to you) and very bitter, probably because its too hot.



I suspect that no-one else notices this because the cream, sugar and other bits of shoite that they decorate the other coffees with will hide this, but these chain shop coffees in their raw state are not good.







Just to put this right into context, I do enjoy a "proper" ground coffee, black, at the correct temperature, but instant coffee can also come close and the crazy thing is that its usually the cheaper brands that are best drunk black, currently I'm making my way thorugh a jar of Tesco's own brand and its very good.



One thing that I find makes a difference is obvious really, the cup size, when in Portugal last year I bought three cups and saucers of different sizes from a hotel supplier, the smallest being what you'd recognise as an espresso cup, the largest being about three times the capacity of that - those wide shallow portuguese cups make the best cup of coffee (even Tescos own brand) I've ever tasted - crazy but true, the cup makes a lot of difference, certainly more than serving scalding hot shoite in polystyrene anyway.

What you want to be asking for there is an Americano, squire. Basically a shot of espresso topped up with hot water. Tends to be what I drink, with just a splash of milk, when out on the road as all the other sundry confections are too heavy and/or calorific.



If I'm stuck with Starbucks as my only option I pretty much exclusively drink their bog-standard filter coffee as the stuff produced by their espresso machines is way too bitter, milk or no.

I'm baffled as to how we were persuaded, as a nation, that paying the best part of a fiver for a paper cup of coffee-like liquid was not only ok, but somehow projected one into the realms of the cool, beautiful people; how did sitting in a generic, over-priced coffee shop become aspirational?



Is Friends to blame? Did we all believe that tapping away on our macbook in a crowded Starbucks would somehow transport us to the urbane cool of Central Perk, where we might enjoy some witty repartee with our own equivalent of Chandler Bing or Rachel?



If I want a cup of coffee whilst on my frequent travels, I open my flask and pour one out; if I want one whilst shopping, I seek out an independent coffee shop and pay less for a better brew. If everyone who objected to the tax tomfoolery of Starbucks actually used their consumer power to do something similar, rather than just posting something pithy on Twitter or Facebook they'd have fecked off years ago - making a difference requires more than hitting the 'Like' button or typing 140 characters on your iPhone.

No, what you should be insisting on is proper filter coffee, not watered down espresso made with beans that have been roasted to within an inch of being burnt as you say below.







I dunno why people don't complain more about being given americano's in place of proper coffee.







Probably the same people who convinced the majority of the population that turgid dishwater served ice cold is beer.

Well, yes. I was merely pointing out that if he [iwanted[/i a plain black coffee from the barista machine he could use a term that wouldn't confuse the barista.





I have a sneaking feeling that the Americano is so named because of the almost universally crap coffee routinely served in the USA.

Americans?

Advertising industry.

I don't normally have a problem with espresso, the only problem being that there is n't enough of it in the thimble full that they serve you,a s if its some kind of liquid gold - even a double is no more than the smallest cup.



An "americano" made from one espresso and diluted by seven or eight more parts of water just below the level of steam is a travesty and more often than not undrinkable.



I have not yet had a bad cup of coffee in Spain or Portugal and I've never partaken of one inside a chain shop in those countries, on the other hand I made the mistake of trying a Greek coffee in Corfu expecting it to be full bodied and to my taste - wrong - fook knows what they make coffee out of and I don't want to know because I'll never have another, the first was weak down to the bottom but full of sludge in the bottom, my mistake was in thinking that it hadn't been stirred properly, so I stirred the next one and chewed a cup of horrible bitter sludge that tasted not of coffee but not of anything I'd ever tasted before either, horrible stuff.

That sounds like Turkish coffee. They grind the beans up very finely, much finer than for espresso and pour hot water over it. You then drink the resulting unfiltered suspension.