Starbucks now also in Holland
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Interestigly I drink Douwe Egberts (spellt right? a Dutch company for those who do not know).
Eric, I think Jeff means that where he was, espressocoffee - brewed of ground coffee but MUCH stronger than the coffee made in the "American" way - was more frequently available than the weeker one.
This comes in smaller "doses" though. When I was in the states, I had to keep a small bag of instant coffee with me all the time to make coffee "drinkably strong" there. Here in Hungary we normally drink this espresso kind of coffee (although lately "long" coffee - as we call what's drunk in the states but also in some European countries) is now also spreading.
Espresso is made by steam being pressed through the coffee rather than just hot water flowing through.
TIP: if you put a (very) small pinch of salt (so small you cannot taste later) into the coffee brewed in an espresso machine, it will make coffee even stronger by soaking all coffein out possible.
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I prefer Costa or Cafe Nero in the UK. However, we should not forget that our favourite piece of software is developed right above a You-know-what.
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@solo said:
Burned coffee!
At the price of your first born!
I used to think so too, but now have come to drink only Starbucks (at home too). Perhaps they have some secret ingredient that conditions our taste buds.
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@remus said:
What do you men by a 'regular american style brew'? im obivously under the false impression that there is only instant coffe and ground coffe...
i mean ground.. brewed drip style..
the reason i say american style is because the u.s. is the only place i've ever been (and i've been to 6 continents) where if you ask for coffee, you're gonna get exactly that.. everywhere else i'll get instant coffee or espresso..there's even a lot of places in the u.s. (cuban,vietnamese,etc. communities or restaurants) where you have to order a cafe americano if you want something other than a small dose of potent mud.. americano being espresso mixed with hot water..
[edit] - that said, i rarely ever go with an americano.. if i'm in miami, i'll always order a cortadito.. that's a cafecito (espresso made with sugar instead of sugar being added to espresso) with a little steamed milk on top.. highly recommended..
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The 'American' (United states) way of making coffee is actually correctly termed Percolate.
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Coen -- I'm happy for you that you can now get the coffee you love so much more conveniently.
Here in Canada we do have Starbucks but only in the bigger urban areas. They have a relatively small share of the coffee-to-go market here. Our big coffee retailer is 'Tim Hortons' which has something like 2,800 outlets and over a billion dollars in yearly sales. That's a lot of coffee in a country with only 33 million in population (roughly double the population of the Netherlands). Just imagine how common 'Tim Hortons' coffee shops would be if you had 1,400 of them in Holland! Practically all Tim Horton outlets here have drive-thru windows so many Canadians can't drive anywhere without stopping for some 'Timmies'. The coffee is the straight-forward drip-brewed kind Jeff described as 'American'. A medium-sized cup is about $1.35 and is considered very affordable compared with Starbuck's prices. The amazing thing about Tim Hortons is they've figured out how to make coffee taste the same consistently. Go to any of those 2,800 stores and the coffee will always be the same year in and year out. Canadians count on Tim's!
Regards, Ross
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@solo said:
The 'American' (United states) way of making coffee is actually correctly termed Percolate.
gotcha.. i wouldn't even know that term if it weren't for my great grandmother's percolator... uses one to this day.. old school
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@ross macintosh said:
'Tim Hortons'
hey i know that place.. i did a job in vancouver a couple of years ago and there was one right next to my hotel.. i got my coffee and b-e-c bagel there every morning..
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I love coffee, in my old job, we lived on it. Since I left that job I can't drink it any more because when I wasn't having 4 or 5 cups a day I started to get migraines. I think I was getting withdrawal sympytoms. So I went cold turkey.
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stramgely enough my local corner store sells locally grown coffee that has won awards world wide
It's way too expensive for me so I buy another aussie product made in Sydney and more within my price range.I use a plunger (In the US it's called a French Press)
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According to the statistics I found, Finns are the biggest coffee drinkers in the world. The amount of coffee consumed would amount to 160 liters per capita per annum - so the average adult drinks something like 6 cups a day. Our coffee is usually stronger than the American variant, but still no espresso. No Starbucks here that I know, but other coffee houses of the same type have started to appear in the larger "cities"
Anssi
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Man you Finns need to cut back!
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Nah, they need it to counteract all the vodka.
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unlike you, coen, my recollection of starbucks' coffee is of a 2nd-rate, watered down beverage. apart from that, i do not like having the same store spread all over the globe. is starbucks the macdonald's of coffee?
here where i live there are many places that sell great, strong coffee, and they are all different from each other.
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I have never tried starbucks' coffee. Have I missed something?
I preffer Italian expresso , short and strong.Not in many places they
make it like in Italy. Its something to do with the water in combination
with the adjustment of the machine. So I have been told.Yes , Cafe Nero in London is ok. Italian recepy.
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Gloria Jeans coffee bars are spreading in Australia - never tried it though.
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@edson said:
is starbucks the macdonald's of coffee?
i definitely wouldn't say that.. mcdonald's sells low quality food where as starbucks is actually putting out a good product.. many will say they over-roast their beans but that's where opinion and taste come into play.. regardless, the actual berries are good from the start and it's not like they are trying to polish a turd..
7eleven, dunkin donuts (and many others) on the other hand sell a lot of flavored coffee (hazelnut, vanilla, etc) which helps disguise the bad beans and/or allows many would be non coffee drinkers to enjoy a cup.. they've taken that a step further now and are selling 'bold' coffee.. the problem is, it's not like they are using a higher quality bean, they are just applying a 'bold roast' flavor to their normal stuff in the same manner they would do hazelnut..
@unknownuser said:
@unknownuser said:
i've never been to holland but i've always imagined great little coffee shops there..
no?Yes, but the term 'coffee shop' here means pot shop, a place where you can smoke weed.
A real coffee shop is just called a café.yeah, i know about you guys.. i was trying to make a little joke..
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I wouldn't buy anything from Starbucks- they've virtually monopolised the entire centre of Edinburgh, driving all the independant cafes out of business and then quickly snapping up the empty premises. Shame on them.
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