What's the worst coffee worldwide?

Herresbach said:

Never liked coffee, I'm a tea and diet coke guys so I can't help you on this topic.
But since you mentioned having had a lot of bad coffee I think I never had a (really) bad cup of tea...
Aren't there as big quality differences with tea than with coffee?

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tonyb said:

Trash-talking Starbucks is a popular pastime among some of my hipper friends and associates in Seattle, where Starbucks got its start and where it is still headquartered, in what used to be the “main” Sears store.

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Trenchfriend said:

Mug-brewed?

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Edward said:

Apparently not... With tea, a decent leaf (and either filtered water or water from a non-hard water area) goes a long way, and it's hard to really screw it up. That said, the one place I find it almost impossible (outside McDs or Starbucks) to get a decent cup of what we would regard as regular tea is, ironically, China. There I instead go for a local variety; chrysanthemum tea is especially nice.

As a species, we tea drinkers tend not - in my experience, at least - to be as obviously picky about varieties and such as coffee drinkers, though in reality I suspect that's only because tea rituals haven't been profitably exploited here in the West to the same extent. Yet.

I've encountered a certain pretentious type on the British vintage scene who sneer at coffee because it's "American". Folks who don't know their history, of course, as coffee houses were huge in England long before tea was readily and affordably available. Funny how often pretentious ninnies' prejudices don't stand up to analysis...



It's fashionable in many quarters here to rag on them too. There are some fair criticisms of them - and I do tend to prefer an indy myself - but all the same they are better than many corporates for how they treat their workforce. Sometimes they're also preferable to going into a pub if you're not interested in drinking alcohol on a given day. I used to quite enjoy finding a window seat at the one on Oxford Street during Christmas Shopping Madness when I'd inevitably done my shopping in September, and sit and watch everyone else going nuts out the window.

A fair few little indy cafes and coffee houses have sprung up as my patch of East London has gentrified over the last couple of decades. I like to see them; I hope they survive the Covid / Brexit recession.

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Edward said:

Apparently not... With tea, a decent leaf (and either filtered water or water from a non-hard water area) goes a long way, and it's hard to really screw it up. That said, the one place I find it almost impossible (outside McDs or Starbucks) to get a decent cup of what we would regard as regular tea is, ironically, China. There I instead go for a local variety; chrysanthemum tea is especially nice.

As a species, we tea drinkers tend not - in my experience, at least - to be as obviously picky about varieties and such as coffee drinkers, though in reality I suspect that's only because tea rituals haven't been profitably exploited here in the West to the same extent. Yet.

I've encountered a certain pretentious type on the British vintage scene who sneer at coffee because it's "American". Folks who don't know their history, of course, as coffee houses were huge in England long before tea was readily and affordably available. Funny how often pretentious ninnies' prejudices don't stand up to analysis...



It's fashionable in many quarters here to rag on them too. There are some fair criticisms of them - and I do tend to prefer an indy myself - but all the same they are better than many corporates for how they treat their workforce. Sometimes they're also preferable to going into a pub if you're not interested in drinking alcohol on a given day. I used to quite enjoy finding a window seat at the one on Oxford Street during Christmas Shopping Madness when I'd inevitably done my shopping in September, and sit and watch everyone else going nuts out the window.

A fair few little indy cafes and coffee houses have sprung up as my patch of East London has gentrified over the last couple of decades. I like to see them; I hope they survive the Covid / Brexit recession.

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Trenchfriend said:

By the way:
I never had Espresso in a classic german restaurant, as far as I remember, but some times in the 90s and 2000s dripper coffee. Was always "watercoffee", as all family members confirmed.

Dripper coffee + too much water = double fail.

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Harp said:

East ender? How the Vid will match Brexit is an interesting thought. Micro and macro quite literally will upend
accepted norms, and I frankly doubt that large metropolitan commute will ever return to pre Covid levels.

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tonyb said:

Drip coffee can be quite strong. All it takes is a higher ground coffee-to-water ratio. A finer grind would help, too, although too fine a grind might not allow the water to drip through the ground coffee, which, if it isn’t caught in time, will result in a BFM. I have seen this happen with home-duty drip coffeemakers.

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Trenchfriend said:

I quit with caffeine in general and became a teadrinker again.

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MisterCairo said:

Which one of us should tell him???

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Trenchfriend said:

I meaned peppermint tea, apple tea, mix herbal tea, lemon tea. Not green tea, seldom Earl Grey.

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MisterCairo said:

Anything made by or on behalf of the Canadian Army.

Unless you've been in the field for three weeks in March, then it's AWESOME.

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Edward said:

Apparently not... With tea, a decent leaf (and either filtered water or water from a non-hard water area) goes a long way, and it's hard to really screw it up. That said, the one place I find it almost impossible (outside McDs or Starbucks) to get a decent cup of what we would regard as regular tea is, ironically, China. There I instead go for a local variety; chrysanthemum tea is especially nice.

As a species, we tea drinkers tend not - in my experience, at least - to be as obviously picky about varieties and such as coffee drinkers, though in reality I suspect that's only because tea rituals haven't been profitably exploited here in the West to the same extent. Yet.

I've encountered a certain pretentious type on the British vintage scene who sneer at coffee because it's "American". Folks who don't know their history, of course, as coffee houses were huge in England long before tea was readily and affordably available. Funny how often pretentious ninnies' prejudices don't stand up to analysis...



It's fashionable in many quarters here to rag on them too. There are some fair criticisms of them - and I do tend to prefer an indy myself - but all the same they are better than many corporates for how they treat their workforce. Sometimes they're also preferable to going into a pub if you're not interested in drinking alcohol on a given day. I used to quite enjoy finding a window seat at the one on Oxford Street during Christmas Shopping Madness when I'd inevitably done my shopping in September, and sit and watch everyone else going nuts out the window.

A fair few little indy cafes and coffee houses have sprung up as my patch of East London has gentrified over the last couple of decades. I like to see them; I hope they survive the Covid / Brexit recession.

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tonyb said:

^^^^^
It’s been so long since I’ve had burnt pencils that I can’t say with any certainty how any coffee compares.

My mother had me addicted to the stuff in utero, although I didn’t resume the habit until a few years into breathing on my own.

Coffee was and is ever-present in my world. The percolator gave way in the 1970s to what we now call the auto-drip machine (think Mr. Coffee, Joe DiMaggio) with occasional forays into the more ritualistic and laborious pour-over drip (think Melitta, Joe Birkenstock) to the espresso machines, which are worth every single one of that mountain of pennies I’ve paid for them over the past couple-three decades.

Good coffee tastes good cold. Lesser coffees are generally okay hot and fresh. There’s something to be said for percolator coffee, provided it’s not more than an hour or so old. A pot (percolator) was pretty much always “on” at my childhood home and the homes of most of my relatives. Pouring out what remained of the old coffee and making a fresh pot was a daily ritual.

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Turnip said:

Complete opposite here. When I was in hospital some time ago they had kind of a supply cart at the counter of the station where you could pick up water, coffee, tea...
The water bottles were placed in the „souterrain“ of that cart so I had to bend a bit for grabbing one. Doing so my nose came close to the drawer with myriads of teabags in it and that cacophonous stench made me instantly puke all over the cart...

The two best coffees I had so far have been at an Italian truck stop on the highway right on the southern side of the Brenner and on a French beach at the Mediterranean Sea from a plastic soup bowl they used in that coffee shack instead of porcelain bowls, along with the freshest thinkable Croissants.

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