First time in Starbucks.....

[Sara_H]

I just don't get this 'going for a coffee/cuppa' malarkey... I can make perfectly good tea and coffee at home, so why go out pay a few quid for one? Going for a pint, on the other hand...

Me neither. OH likes to "go for coffee". I'm not that fussed, unless it involves cake and since I gave up dairy and eggs - finding cake in cafe's is a bit of a challenge!

 

[Sara_H]

I got the OH an independant Sheffield card for christmas, which gets him a discount at lots of local independant cafe's and shops, so we've been frequenting them more often than not when we do "go for coffee" (cake).

 

[jefmcg]

6 pages and no one has yet mentioned the Starbucks secret menu?

The most important thing on the "secret menu" is the "small". The reason sb calls it's smallest coffee a "tall" is that there is actually a small that is cheaper, they just don't tell you about it.

I've never tried one, the only time in the last 5 years I've had a starbucks coffee was at 3am on a 400km audax, where it was the only thing open at Membury Services. Managed to eat the panini, but the coffee was horrible.

If I want good coffee I want it made by hipsters. I want beards and I want tattoos. I want single estate roasts and I want the dude who makes it to be able to bore me rigid for a good half hour about where it's from, what flavours it contains and what the best extraction method is to bring out those flavours. I want rickety mismatched furniture and I want a copy of Caffeine magazine. I want a chocolate brownie and I want a glass of water to cleanse my palate. I want it all served on a big lump of wood and I want it to come with tasting notes. And then I want to take a photo of it with a cool instagrammy filter and I want to post it on the internet.
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Now that is how you do coffee, courtesy of Upshot Espresso on Glossop Road. I don't know how they do it, they must brew their coffee with angel's piss and steamed unicorn milk or something, because it is amazing, and like no other coffee I have ever tasted in my life.

The best coffee is made by a 1.5metre Italian man on indeterminate age, who has been making espresso since before the hipster's parents were born, in a cafe with at least one table of similar gentlemen all drinking treacle dark espressos. Unfortunately, I can't find such a place in the UK, and the Soho cafes that have been unchanged for decades and look like the right sort of places generally serve coffee much worse than the free stuff from Waitrose, so it's hipster for me, too. Or faux hipster, in a pinch.

 

[Fnaar]

As I mentioned upthread, I don't go to coffee bars that much, but I've never had an unpalatable one in any of the chains.
However, the best coffee is served in small bars in Spanish villages, populated by men with berets and women in widows weeds.. Like Italy, but without any pretensions.

 

[FrankCrank]

...I heard the best coffee beans are shat out of a monkeys arse...........each to their own I guess

 

[midlife]

...I heard the best coffee beans are shat out of a monkeys arse...........each to their own I guess

Asian Palm Civet I believe.

Shaun

 

[FrankCrank]

Asian Palm Civet I believe.

Shaun

...that's the fella. Wonder how thorough they researched this one. How many other jungle animals were rejected till they decided only this one could impart just the right amount of flavour to the beans.......

 

[RichardB]

Maybe it is my age, but I really do not understand seeing people walking into where I work, with a Starbucks, Costa etc., coffee or tea in their hand.

I don't understand this either. Is it an American thing? FFS, have your breakfast at home and a coffee when you get to work, you don't need a coffee in your hand to walk 100 yards. Actually, it's a more general thing for me. Everywhere I go, I see people stuffing themselves with food and guzzling pop. Children, teenagers, adults ... it's as if the apocalypse was coming and they need to fill up while there is still food available. Does no-one ever eat a meal at home and then go out and do stuff any more? I'm not talking about taking a pack-up when you know you're going to be away from home at a mealtime. I mean coming out of Tesco and immediately scarfing down two sandwiches and a pork pie and a bottle of fizzy sugar while sitting in the car because you can't bear to be away from food for a moment. Going back a few years, you hardly ever saw people eating on the street. Now, it seems compulsory.

/grump

 

[robjh]

Why go to a cafe when you can drink your coffee from a shopping trolley while walking round Waitrose?

 

[Fab Foodie]

Gareth Hunt .... What an utter beanshaker .....

 

[Freds Dad]

I have never been in any of the High St cafe chains and never will. I believe in supporting small local businesses of which we have a lot in Macclesfield and always look for similar when visiting other towns.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Not for me - overpriced trendiness doesn't appeal.

 

[EltonFrog]

Gareth Hunt .... What an utter beanshaker .....

Gareth Hunt...actor or rhyming slang?