Starbucks coffee is an affront to all things good about coffee
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Discuss.
cheers Chris Maunder
I don't know about Starsucks in the US or Canada or Australia... My experience with it, in Mexico City and surrounding cities, has been very positive. When I go, I usually ask for either black coffee (or "Today's coffee or Daily coffee" or whatever they call it now) or black tea (English breakfast blend, usually). They charge me MXN$35 (pesos), which at today's exchange rate is a few cents under USD$2, and I get more than half litre of coffee or tea (100ml for 33 USD cents). While it might not be the cheapest, it has very good quality. The brews usually come from local states Veracruz and Chiapas, each producing very good quality of coffee, or Colombia, which is the greates brew I have tasted so far. Ocasionally they have coffee from Guatemala (which is Chiapas-like) or African countries, which IMO is good, yet not great. Being in a coffee exporter country, it is very easy to find places with very good quality brews. You can get SB-quality coffee for as low as 25 USD cents per 100 ml. However, SB provides additional services, such as free WiFi and nice, cozy desks where to work. Given that, those extra 8 USD cents are well worth it. Now, if you go for Italian-like coffee brews (cappuccino, latte, machiatto or mochaccino) then the prices escalate to MXN$55 and if you add extras (vanilla syrup, chocochips, mousse and such) your account can increase up to MXN$70. That is expensive, compared to what you can get elsewhere (cappuccinos for MXN$40 for example), and the beverage quality decreases (IMO) because the coffee taste gets diluted with all the additional sugar and milk. So, all in all, I'd say I have had a good experience with Starbucks. Good quality, good prices for black coffee (which is what I usually drink anyway, coffee with steamming water and nothing more) or black tea, and a nice place to work or just hang out.
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Someone may have already said this (I couldn't be bothered to read through 6 screens full of comments) but you really can't beat a freshly brewed cup of tea, or two.
xiecsuk wrote:
you really can't beat a freshly brewed cup of tea
Blue tea, red tea, white tea, especially. :) :thumbsup:
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I don't know about Starsucks in the US or Canada or Australia... My experience with it, in Mexico City and surrounding cities, has been very positive. When I go, I usually ask for either black coffee (or "Today's coffee or Daily coffee" or whatever they call it now) or black tea (English breakfast blend, usually). They charge me MXN$35 (pesos), which at today's exchange rate is a few cents under USD$2, and I get more than half litre of coffee or tea (100ml for 33 USD cents). While it might not be the cheapest, it has very good quality. The brews usually come from local states Veracruz and Chiapas, each producing very good quality of coffee, or Colombia, which is the greates brew I have tasted so far. Ocasionally they have coffee from Guatemala (which is Chiapas-like) or African countries, which IMO is good, yet not great. Being in a coffee exporter country, it is very easy to find places with very good quality brews. You can get SB-quality coffee for as low as 25 USD cents per 100 ml. However, SB provides additional services, such as free WiFi and nice, cozy desks where to work. Given that, those extra 8 USD cents are well worth it. Now, if you go for Italian-like coffee brews (cappuccino, latte, machiatto or mochaccino) then the prices escalate to MXN$55 and if you add extras (vanilla syrup, chocochips, mousse and such) your account can increase up to MXN$70. That is expensive, compared to what you can get elsewhere (cappuccinos for MXN$40 for example), and the beverage quality decreases (IMO) because the coffee taste gets diluted with all the additional sugar and milk. So, all in all, I'd say I have had a good experience with Starbucks. Good quality, good prices for black coffee (which is what I usually drink anyway, coffee with steamming water and nothing more) or black tea, and a nice place to work or just hang out.
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I once made the mistake? of bringing a 4lb sack of ground coffee back from Columbia. It took me an age to get it through British Customs. They had sniffer dogs inspecting it before they finally let me through.
Bad experience indeed, I hear you. I once made the mistake to land in Paris with unlabeled sodium bicarbonate and cajeta (some sort of toasted milk candy) that I had brought as a gift to a friend. It took me like two hours to convince them that the white powder was not cocaine (of course, they didn't take my word for it, they had it tested), that the cajeta was a candy (they did try it and tested it also, therefore ruining my gift), and that I was not a drug dealer. :rolleyes:
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Discuss.
cheers Chris Maunder
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I'm pretty sure Tim Hortons put crack in their coffee because it's disgusting but once I've had a cup I need another one. It's very wrong.
cheers Chris Maunder
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So - a subjective subject has an objective standard. I've heard the same sheit about who makes the best Pizza. But, let's look at this objectively - i.e., not about taste but about the wet-chemistry methodology used to produce coffee. You have the beans: Surface area will control the rate of various extractions, hence the grind is important to control the following: Soluble products: With few exceptions, hotter water extracts more quickly and in larger quantities than colder water. This is potentially both positive and negative, depending upon what you wish to extract from the medium. Conventional coffee wisdom is that boiling water is preferred - and except in pressurized espresso makers, that waters' at 100 C. Most minerals must be in an ionic form if one wishes to extract them with water. There's an effect (common ion effect) that could potentially inhibit the extraction of certain minerals if the extraction medium is already high in said mineral. Organically bound minerals, on the other hand, typically are non-ionic and not particularly soluble (e.g., iron in your blood, copper in lobster blood). There's also the possibility of chelation, further complicating the issue (and the effect of temperature), as it may increase the solubility of poorly soluble minerals (eg, most forms of Calcium). The (nauseating) Organic Product: These are basically extracted into the system because they're mobilized by the hot-water (not dissolved in it to any significant degree!). If you look up what is called a soxhlet extraction, you'll see the relationship (Wikipedia [^]has a neat animated image). Again, super-heated water will affect this rate. In the typical drip coffee maker, this is a one-pass event so the variation (based upon water temp and grind) will be much more pronounced. Bare in mind that none of the above even mentioned the degree of roasting (which would be a coffee specific modification to the processes). The roasting, however, causes a breakdown of many of the components (for the paranoid amongst us, like almost all thermal decomposition, it's free-radical chemistry). The partially oxidized oils may take on some partially ionic character, making them easier to extract (except they may bind more firmly to the substrate) - but they may also polymerize and become less soluble
I don't understand a word of that, but in a good way (I think), so have an upvote.
Er, I can't think of a funny signature right now. How about a good fart to break the silence?
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Chris certainly started a good discussion! A friend with Italian parents remarked that Starbucks has branches in almost every country in the world except Italy, where coffee was first introduced in Europe. They didn't want to open a café in a country where proper coffee is made. It's only very recently that Starbucks has dared to open a café in Milan Jerry
And I bet it's only used by tourists. Well, that and curious youngsters who will sneak in without their parents/grandparents seeing to try this american abomination.
Er, I can't think of a funny signature right now. How about a good fart to break the silence?
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I don't understand a word of that, but in a good way (I think), so have an upvote.
Er, I can't think of a funny signature right now. How about a good fart to break the silence?
In a nutshell, it's an elaboration on "oil and water don't mix", but you can still somehow manage to do laundry.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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And I bet it's only used by tourists. Well, that and curious youngsters who will sneak in without their parents/grandparents seeing to try this american abomination.
Er, I can't think of a funny signature right now. How about a good fart to break the silence?
Typical EuroSnobbery: the baton of cultural leadership has long ago been passed to the Western Side of the Atlantic. I've been across much of Europe and, particularly when speaking of food and drink, it's time you just get over yourselves.* And now, I think I'll go enjoy a Hershey Bar[^]!
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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Typical EuroSnobbery: the baton of cultural leadership has long ago been passed to the Western Side of the Atlantic. I've been across much of Europe and, particularly when speaking of food and drink, it's time you just get over yourselves.* And now, I think I'll go enjoy a Hershey Bar[^]!
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
Hershey is as bad as Dairy Milk, just in a different way. Mainland Europe seems to have a much better handle on chocolate. I'm not a fan of dark chocolate, but dairy milk is just too sweet. It needs to be chocolatey, creamy and just a bit sweet. Not sure about cultural leadership, America is such a different place to Europe. There are definitely american influences in europe, but not everything gains traction this side of the pond. Everything is so much bigger there, you have more room. Bigger houses, bigger cars etc. I remember one of the American open-top bus companies trying to start in Bath. They ignored all the local operators and tried to use the same huge open top buses they were using in the US and London. The first one got stuck within a week! My point is this, some things that work perfectly fine in America won't work here, or at least won't quite fit. Europe, having gotten much "smaller" the last couple of decades, is definitely developing a shared culture, but even there environment, cultural heritage and other influences dictate that there must be differences between each. We'll continue to pick and choose what we like, but I don't think Europe's culture will ever be "lead" by any influence outside of Europe. Wow. No idea where that came from. Must be time for a cup of tea! :java: (closest picture I could find, sorry)
Er, I can't think of a funny signature right now. How about a good fart to break the silence?
