In bigger cities (especially London, of course) you cannot move for them. In some areas I guess you don´t have to walk more then 3 minutes to find a hot cup of coffee or what other drink you might fancy.
The three huge chains, many medium sized ones and, last but not least, lots of small and independent ones. And when it comes to coffee machines of course you get spoilt for the same choice as everywhere else.
I´m stating: nowadays the UK is a very good place if you love to drink coffee.
So why oh why does the average Brit at home still seem to drink the ghastly powder that is instant coffee?!?
Yes, it does exist everywhere else too but I have not seen anyone in Germany actually drinking it.
It tastes sour and thin, it gives me horrible heartburn, it´s definitely the drink from hell (closely followed by egg-nog). Another mysterium...
If you feel that I´m speaking about you here then please, leave a comment and explain to me what is so wonderful about freeze-dried "coffee".
It's a long time since I (willingly) drank a cup of instant coffee. My hot beverage of choice is tea, in traditional and herbal form, but when I do drink coffee it has to be at least filtered and preferably a latte (occasionally with a shot of vanilla syrup).
ReplyDeleteI drank a lot of coffee as a student - to keep me going into the small hours scribbling an essay due in the following day! I used to buy a Fairtrade variety (Campaign) which tasted fishy.
You're right about the proliferation of coffee shops in the UK. I've nothing against them except the preponderance of the large chains and the amount of waste they generate, not all/much of which is recycled.
I'm therefore very proud of Totnes who,last week, saw off Costa, in favour of their 41 independent cafes. Well done!
last month Starbucks in Horsham shut down as well...surprising how the development seems to slightly go that way now.
Deletei once had some freeze-dried coffee in london that i actually liked... but i can´t remember the name :D
ReplyDeleteMy parents (daddy is english, mummay is german) actually do drink instant coffee every single morning :-)
ReplyDeleteI think they drink it because before all the coffee shops and wow-coffee machines(nespresso etc.) came around, it was the most quick, cheap and easy way to have coffee.
A few months ago they bought therselves one of these wow-coffe-machines, though. But as far as I know it just get's used when they`ve got visitors..... :-)
So maybe this instant-coffe-thing is just by habit
Oh weh! Instantkaffee?! Horror! Ich kann nciht verstehen, wie Menschen das trinken könnnen. Ich habe aber ähnliche Erfahrungen bei meinem Englandaustausch gemacht. Keine Ahnung was meine Tauschfamilie an diesem Gebräu finden konnte. Da bin ich wirklich froh, dass es das hier in Deutschland nicht so sehr gibt.
ReplyDeleteInstantkaffee? Nein danke, dann lieber keinen Kaffee und lieber einen guten Tee!
Viele liebe Grüße, Behyflora