You can even buy Douwe Egberts coffee and tea here in Australia.

Starbucks could be useful in countries with bad coffee such as UK or USA. Costa’s is a main competitior in the UK coffeehouse market. Ten years ago, good coffee in the UK was rare, today, UK have improved their coffee with thanks to the nearby continent. Countries with a established coffee culture, such as the European continent (Scandinavia, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany) already have established brands (such as Illy) and coffeehouses, so for Starbucks there’s only a niche left.

I make my own espresso with one of those funky octagonal Italian espresso caffetiere and I’ve discovered Aldi’s Organic Fair Trade coffee recently. It’s even cheap!

Good strong coffee should be smooth. Just because it’s strong doesn’t mean it has to suck your brains down into your guts when you drink it. It needs to be made at 94 degrees C, and those clever Italian thingies do it spot on. Oh and a dash of cream goes down really well, a la Francaise!

I think the reason why some people like Starbuck is that they don’t know any better. In North America I think that many fast food outlets have bright uncomfortable lighting to ensure that people eat and go quickly to ensure a high turn over. I guess Starbucks has identified that people want a place to hang out and chat in pleasant surroundings. This of course is all old news to people who’ve been exposed to a real coffee culture for generations like the old Italian men who sit in coffee shops all day.

With a bit of luck, my wife and I will be travelling through your country next year and I’ll (my wife hates coffee) get to try some coffee the Slovenian way. I’m crossing my fingers that it’s not like Greek coffee!

Grass

There has been a trend here in Australia to make coffee shops more comfortable places to hang out in, plus they serve real properly roasted coffee and I think that’s why Starbucks is struggling here.

I think you’re right about the normal filter coffee one gets served in restaurants over in the US. It’s not hard to improve on and I think that adds to the point I made before, when I said that Starbucks can only exist in places that don’t have a well established and sophisticated coffee culture.

Anyway, I was always strong opponent of large corporations and chains but I must say that Starbucks is not at the top of my list (though am not a big fan either). Probably because there are none around here.

That’s why I connect it to traveling in the West, as another hip thingy that awaits me in the big cities. The one thing I admittedly like about Starbucks is that it is a place where I can sit back comfortably for a long long time without feeling bad or getting dirty looks from waiters. It is always nicer to find a local joint but sometimes I feel like I just want my half hour in one of those armchairs, and pay the entry ticket/cup.

The coffee is not what I go there for, though you must admit it tends to be better than the warm brown water they normally serve in the States. I guess the biggest problem is that SB expanded worldwide, to the places where they know/knew what a good cup of coffee is. I’ll definitely have a good one tomorrow morning.

The other thing is that some places are just ‘hip’ and even if they served ’shit with sugar on it’ there would still be crowd waiting for it. I believe Starbucks is in many ways one of these – sure, there are people hanging there because they have that ‘communitiy’ feeling, but in my opinion, in most of the developed world there are many places and opportunities to ‘enjoy your community’.

I still don’t want to make you angry, though. Even though the derision would be brilliant.