Re: Starbucks threaten Cameron : Tue Jan 29, 2013 7:25 pm  

Kosh wrote:

What you want to be asking for there is an Americano, squire.

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.

Kosh wrote:

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

bren2k wrote:

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?

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

[Kosh]

Re: Starbucks threaten Cameron : Tue Jan 29, 2013 7:50 pm  

Big Graeme wrote:

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.

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

Big Graeme wrote:

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

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

Re: Starbucks threaten Cameron : Tue Jan 29, 2013 8:26 pm  

Big Graeme wrote:

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

Americans?

Re: Starbucks threaten Cameron : Tue Jan 29, 2013 8:29 pm  

bren2k wrote:

Americans?

Advertising industry.

Re: Starbucks threaten Cameron : Tue Jan 29, 2013 9:33 pm  

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.

Re: Starbucks threaten Cameron : Tue Jan 29, 2013 10:22 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

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.

Re: Starbucks threaten Cameron : Tue Jan 29, 2013 10:29 pm  

I love Greek /Turkish coffee (no sugar).

Re: Starbucks threaten Cameron : Tue Jan 29, 2013 11:10 pm  

Keith wrote:

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.

Don't they sometimes add ground up figs too?
Anyway it is an acquired taste.

Re: Starbucks threaten Cameron : Wed Jan 30, 2013 5:43 am  

JerryChicken wrote:

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.

Instead of "kafedes" you should have asked for "ena nes oris gala" (black instant) or better still, just ask for a frappe

Re: Starbucks threaten Cameron : Wed Jan 30, 2013 8:09 am  

So I take that all those who have boycotted Starbucks will also be binning their Apple products - Apple's ability to siphon money off into tax havens is legendary and makes Starbucks looks like a kid with his pocket money.