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From The Times

January 26, 2008

A tall bland caramel thing, please

Why did we model our coffee shops on America's, instead of Continental ones?

Janice Turner

In Berlin, near Checkpoint Charlie, where actors playing Russian border guards shivered in thin, ersatz Red Army uniforms, we fell into the nearest Starbucks. Maybe it was my damp bones, or because we'd just followed an exhibition of wretched life behind the Wall with a harrowing trip to Gestapo HQ, but I went mad and ordered a vanilla and caramel latte macchiato. Yay, to living in a free modern Europe! You wouldn't get six choices of sprinkle toppings in the old GDR. And the Nazis would certainly have made this impure co-mingling of coffee and corn-based syrups Verboten.

My drink was disgusting. A bland half-pint of milk with as much coffee flavour as if someone sipping an espresso had sneezed over my cup. A coffee for someone who hates coffee, but uses the bitter adult nectar as a cloak of sophistication for their babyish suckling on warm, creamy sweetness.

I should have walked another rainy block to any German coffee house, where a fragrant black brew is standard. And usually comes with one small, free, delicious biscuit, thus negating interest in a mushroom cloud of triple-choc muffin. What a pity that when Britain traded in our centuries-old tea habit we bypassed the Continent for the mighty American beverage industry. We might not now be a nation with chafing thighs.

Is it a coincidence that obesity rates have soared in tandem with the coffee chains? There are now 3,000 branded cafés in Britain, 600 of them Starbucks, which every fortnight opens a new venue in which you can appreciate the music of Norah Jones. In London, says its corporate website, you are never more than five minutes from a Starbucks. Although the same is said about a rat.

What a glorious racket is a coffee chain! They flog an addictive drug at a ludicrous mark-up and have hiked their prices by 40 per cent in a decade. Yet they seem so benign and progressive, with their muted lighting, soft furnishings, invitation to linger, draft a novella, trade slightly risqué badinage, like characters in Friends. The franchises crop up in bookshops: bohemia, Left Bank. The HQ is in Seattle: grunge, garage, Nirvana. Decor is quirky, dark, woody, after-hours. It is easy to forget that every branch is utterly the same.

And while McDonald's has received much kicking for its role in ballooning our bellies, the coffee chains have thus far avoided blame. Yet Which? this week reports that a Starbucks large white chocolate mocha with whipped cream is 628 calories. But, duh, it's virtually a dessert! What concerns me is the medium latte at 273 calories. Britain's preferred brew was once the cappuccino (one third milk) but we've shifted to the latte (two thirds). Indeed, whenever I watch poo-doctor Gillian McKeith spread out some blushing butterball's weekly food intake, among the pies and pizzas is always a phalanx of latte cups. Four a day is common.

It is, after all, just a drink. Yeah, I'll have another if you will. And the latte is often served in a glass, which is a bit exotic. I remember when I first heard one ordered. Ooh, they're in the know, I thought, my own cappuccino rendered provincial and gauche. No one points out that a latte was not created as an all-day guzzle; that in Italy it is a breakfast-only drink.

Bill Bryson, upon arriving in pre-coffee-house Britain, wrote how he was charmed by our enjoyment of treats that he, as an American, regarded as touchingly meagre. Our deep sigh after our first sip of cuppa, a plain scone or a toasted teacake, which is no more than a bap with big ideas.

Now look at us, Bill! We stand before the bewildering Starbucks blackboard and ask, unblushing, for a “venti frappuccino with whip”. It's more exposing to order a plain coffee. Starbucks' success is built on individuality: “Customise your coffee” instructs a large notice. So what kind of boring person doesn't want maple syrup or extra froth? Don't you have many facets to your personality? What, you're just a regular guy? Besides when you're paying around £3 a drink - Starbucks is vastly dearer than your local small coffee shop - you deserve all the swirls and sprinkles. And try ordering a cup of tea. Or rather a Tazo Chai Latte (large: £3.05, 322 calories), which is - bleugh - one big milky cuppa. Ordinary tea is at the very end of the menu since even Starbucks can't justify a mark-up beyond £1.55 on hot water and a teabag.

And Which? discovered that Starbucks coffee is terrible. An

expert taster rated their Americano “poor”, their cappuccino only “satisfactory” since, while Costa and Caffè Nero stick in two shots as standard, Starbucks offers only a single. But then of course it's foul a) because American coffee is the thinnest, meanest cup of Joe on the planet and b) because that's the way we like it.

Malcolm Gladwell in Blink discusses market research by coffee manufacturers. Customers all say they like a “rich, dark roast” when three quarters really hate coffee that way. They like it weak and milky, but don't like to admit it. Starbucks has grown rich and we've grown fat, allowing us to demand a vanilla and caramel latte macchiato, while in our heads we're thinking instant Mellow Birds.

Is your Easter as messed up as mine? Did I miss the letter home to parents saying that the Government has abolished Easter if it falls inconveniently early, like this year on March 23. It's part of the Government's tidying up of the school year, so half terms are nice, neat equal lengths. My son at a state primary gets Good Friday to Easter Monday off, then returns to school to toil for another fortnight, before his two-week secular “spring break”, with all its associations of frat boys going mental in Atlantic City.

Meanwhile, private schools, such as my elder lad's, are sticking to the crazy old-fashioned idea of Easter holidays during Easter. This means my sons are off for more than four weeks in total, but their vacations overlap for only four days! Working parents - particularly teachers at different schools to their kids - are banging heads on kitchen calendars in despair.

I don't know who to blame: the Government for fixing something that wasn't broken and thus encouraging mass truancy, the private schools for cussedly ignoring change or the Church for keeping this arcane way of calculating

Easter: first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox indeed.

Sydney cafes sell a strong coffee any style for 3 dollars, served in an elegant cup and saucer while you sit at a normal table on a normal chair rather than a sofa. UK has lots to learn on this one, why not model from Australia not America for a change?

Victoria, Sydney,

FYI, not even all of us from Seattle drink Starbucks-- there are plenty of independent cafes to choose from. And what is it with this oh-so-common refrain I hear from the British Isles. You don't like American culture? So stop buying into it and get your own. It's not our fault you choose to embrace the worst of what our society has to offer while ignoring the best, and this fact says more about you than it does us. And forgive me if I think this experience at Checkpoint Charlie seems a little contrived. I find it hard to believe you had this sudden epiphany re: the quality of Starbucks or that you have any real appreciation for the taste of coffee given your beverage choice. I think you, like so many on this side of the pond just found another reason to have a go at Empire America, laying the blame for your faults at our doorstep, because it's easier than taking responsibility and actually doing something about it.

Christine , Nottingham (formerly Seattle) , UK

I agree about Starbucks. However, on the Easter hols report, no "frat boy" has gone to Atlantic City for Spring Break in about 55 years, if ever. First, have you been to Atlantic City? It exists for blue haired ladies to throw away their Social Security checks on slot machines. The place is a dump. Secondly, the beach and water are far too cold to sit on or swim in at Spring Break time.

For spring break, think Texas of Florida, or for the more internationally minded, Barbados, Jamaica or the Bahamas.

William, Arlington, Virginia

Coffee is really horrible stuff so who cares where you drink it? So called continental cafes serve this foul tasting brew, acid as a battery, often small as a thimble, guaranteed to destroy your stomach and make your nerves twitch. Might as well start taking crack for breakfast. No. No. Just drink tea, with milk and sugar. Better all round. Funny how not a single place in the whole of Europe outside the UK can actually fathom out how to make tea!

Emily W, cambridge, UK

Mizz Turner,

I go to Starbucks every morning, as I've done pretty much for the last three or four years or so-but I am not fat. How can you account for that? Maybe I should mention that I also exercise from time to time?

Perhaps Starbucks is not your cup of tea. So be it. Yet, if you really want good coffee at a very fair price, try importing the cafes of Sao Paolo or Rio.

I reckon you can't do that either, can you. After all, Brazil is an American country...

Curtis LeMay, Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA

Image over substance. Blair showed the way for 10 years and the Great British public follow. We will learn eventually, I hope.

Peter, Hong Kong,

Never had a Starbuck's coffee in my life - so please don't lump us all together with the lemmings like yourself.

Frederick, London, UK

Before moving to Lugano which is the Italian speaking region of Switzerland and only a few miles from the Italian border with Italy, I had the typical British idea of coffee, i.e none. Here Starbucks and the like would be laughed out of town. I come back to the UK from time to time and it is so difficult to get a decent coffee. In both Starbucks and Costa I have returned my espresso due to its being undrinkable. That makes some quite interesting reactions from the staff. Cafe Nero hit the spot ok, but generally speaking it is extremely difficult to get a decent coffee in the UK and I must admit there is always pleasure in returning home and being able to order a coffee that will put hair on your chest. Who wants metrosexual coffee..blah.

Russell, Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland

Janice, how right you are. We visited Lille recently, and had the best cup of coffee we've ever tasted - in a French cafe.

We should model a lot more than coffee on our Continental cousins. We might try health, food, transport, crime; in fact our whole lifestyle.

If only the media could stop the American obsession, and consider Europe. We will be healthier, and decadence will be put on hold.

Martin, Crawley, England

This country insists on aping America, even as far as helping them into a futile, expensive war and endangering our island even further by helping them in building giant golf balls in a beautiful area of Yorkshire and fly their terrorist suspect to some torture sites, so why quibble over this? Wake up and smell the coffee!

Peter K Day, Doncaster, UK/Yorkshire

Sadly, even Germany has about three chains of coffee shops (Starbucks, Seattle Coffee Company and Woyton). The only good thing I can say about them is that they often have comfy seats and armchairs.

However, I prefer to go to a real German cafe and cake shop, where the cakes are made by the cake shop itself.

If you're ever in DÃ¼sseldorf, try Heinemann and Otto Bittner. You won't regret it.

Tina, Dusseldorf, Germany

Interesting. Here in Alaska, just a few short years ago, we wondered what we were missing, with no Starbucks within the state. Travelers from afar (Seattle, actually), regaled us with tales of the deep, luscious brew offered up in oh so cutesy shops, one per corner in busy downtown.
Alas, one (and now several) Starbucks' outlets have made their way to the Last Frontier. Straight brewed, unadorned (is there any other way?) Starbucks French roast is heavenly. But: $1.75 US for a 12 oz. cuppa? I'll brew my own at home, thanks.

Denny, Alaska, Chugiak, Alaska, USA

Simply because it is not the coffee they are interested in but the image. Sadly our wonderful education system has led to two generations who can only see form and not substance. Where relativity reigns conglomerates grow.

Benjamin, Fairford,

Tim Hortons......you need to try it
The great Canadian coffee shop, there's none of this lazing around on sofas, sipping cappafrappachino and parting with enough money to feed a family for a day for the pleasure.
It is delicious , cheap and yes, quite addictive

sally, cranbrook, canada

Never been in a Starbucks. Love coffee too much.

eric mccleave, paris, france

as you say, why america? get wait to get back to mallorca for a proper cup of coffee.

Phil Barnes, preston , england

Starbucks offers something that people like. Why else would they be so popular.

End of the day- its the public that loves coffees that dont taste much like coffee.

So we are equally to blame

chetas patel, croydon town, surrey

Why did we model our coffee shops on American's, instead of Continental ones?
Because were the 51st State in the Union !

Will, Hannover, Germany

John Smith in Manchester, You're dead right, but where can I buy a house anywhere for Â£3 per day X 365 = Â£1095 X 45 years = Â£49275?

Ken Whysall, h,

I dunno. Why do you people fry everything and think that canned beans are an acceptable breakfast food?

Steve Coughlin, La Quinta, USA/California

Why did " we" model our coffee bars like the Americans and not like european ones. Because "we " have no choice, and anyway, the British are more New World than they are european. It still surprises me that after two world wars the most popular cars in Britain are BMW's, Mercedes, VW's, and Audi's, but let's face it the British will take anybody's gear these days.

Phil de Buquet, Newport, England

I love Starbucks, but having said that I live in a city which doesn't have any. Starbucks is always a port of call on trips to Basel and Freiburg. I don't like their coffee, and the last cheesecake I had was not that great: I think it must be the atmosphere. Something a little young and modern goes down quite well in a region stuffed with (admittedly excellent) cakeshops, full of old ladies with poodles...

Helene, Strasbourg, France

Myself, I prefer Costa to Starbucks, but neither are cheap. Many American's use Starbucks as a social venue in fact I read a blog from someone in Los Angeles who writes about his experience everyday, 'heard at Starbucks'!

As for American coffee outisde of Starbucks, it's even worse.

Gaz, London, UK

Can everyone please stop calling an espresso an eXpresso????

Federikke, London,

My sister-in-law loves CaffÃ© Nero coffee but found my home made coffee on my Italian machine far too strong. When I went to the US I couldn't believe how awful the coffee was. As Matt says why on earth would you pay Â£3 for a cup of coffee?

Ronald, Albi, France

There is a positive aspect: If you are content with a starbuck's coffee - you are no caffeine-addict.

I am not able to handle all that volume to arrive at my threshold of caffeine.

Peter Vernunft, Berlin, Germany

Not sure who to blame for your 'messed up' Easter? I'm sorry to say yourself; for not believing in state secondary education. Bright children (as I'm sure yours are) do well, regardless of school type. The biggest single determinant of a child's educational success is parental support. Having gained considerable success yourself from being educated in the state sector why deny your sons the opportunity of gaining a first rate education whilst allowing them to be part of a community of youngsters from varied backgrounds? I have two teenagers at one of the largest state schools in the country. They are both high achieving kids who get along with many types of people. The April page of our calendar is looking distinctly straight-forward! Good luck!

Catherine McGinn, Derby,

Excellent article, hear hear. Starbucks, like McDonalds, is colonising the earth at an alarming rate. Here in Kuwait, as across the Middle East there are old shisha cafes with real local character selling gorgeous thick Turkish coffees, Arabian coffees and various teas, but the under-30s are deserting them en masse, flocking instead to the homogenous vanilla so-whatness of Starbucks and various copycat venues, so many of the old cafes are closing down unable to compete. How anyone can pass Starbucks or its clones' bland sickly sweet froth off as real coffee - especially to anybody who's tasted real coffee and knows the difference - is incredible and depressing.

Ruth (British expat), Salwa, Kuwait

Janice, what on Earth possessed you to think that Starbucks represents "American coffee shops"? A smidgen of Eurosnobism, perhaps? Starbucks represents chains, my dear girl, not "American coffee shops". There is plenty of decent, small coffee shops with excellent coffee around here, and believe me, they are not Starbucks. Get off your euro-snootiness and compare apples to apples, please.

Sarka, San Francisco, US

this is the skill of America - it has the brilliance of being able to creatively market the utterly bland..and the whole of Hollywood is on-side helping to deliver the "american dream". Forget the fact that its a myth. But one cant complain about their sucess - no one forces the sheep-like to enter these emporiums of unhealthy and tasteless foods. American food like its beer is designed for people who have zero intrest in their food.

zugerman, zurich, switzerland

There's a Starbucks on the corner near my apartment. I went inside twice. The coffee was bitter, the tea was weak. Why people pay the high prices for inferior beverages is beyond me. I do not think that holding a Starbucks container as I walk down the street is going to increase my social status, but guess others do. Simply do not give them your business and these places will close.

Linda, New York City, USA

Starbucks started being pretty good -- like that German coffeehouse you describe -- but has gone downhill in the last decade. They themselves admit this. It's actually gotten much hard to get a good cup of coffee in Toronto over the past ten years. particularly in the more outlying, "square" areas of the city.

How can we get some of those German and Italian coffee houses to come over here and remind Starbucks of its origins? We eagerly await with outstretched quivering, caffeine-addicted hands.

Mathew, Toronto, Canada

But we did have the continental model in London at least, till relatively recently. Every Italien sandwich bar would offer a decent cup of continental style coffee at a reasonable price. Sadly they've been gradually eased out by rising rents in the capital, due in part to certain, ahem, coffee chains, paying over the odds for desirable locations.

Jacque, Frankfurt (ex London), Germany

Personally, I won't set foot in places that don't serve alcohol.

Tim, Lancaster,

Spot on- Starbucks is a perversion of what good coffee constitutes- namely, not-overly-strong, not-too-weak, authentic, and reasonably priced. But the problem is the chain so damn ubiquitous in London that there are few other chain's to visit (especially which open until late in the evening).

In the last 18 months I have been to Stockholm- where an excellent cup of coffee and pastry cost the equivalent of one pound twenty, Brussels- where a brilliant coffee and a delicious chocolate cake cost just over two euros- San Francisco- where a good cup of coffee (with a free refil and cake )only cost me $1.50 in a family-run bakery. And guess what? Starbucks is losing money hand over fist in the states (so much so that their CEO recently resigned) although I bet in the U.S you don't have to part with over six or seven quid in a Starbucks boutique.

Why do I feel like I need to cross international borders to get a good cup of coffee?

Darren Pipe, Greenhithe, Kent, United Kingdom

I'm rather pleased to say that on a rare trip to London recently we ordered tea in Starbucks. I only drink coffee a couple of times a year when I go to the local Italian restaraunt and it is a wonderful and delightful experience enhanced by its infrequency.

By the way, if you want worse than Starbucks try a vending machine!

John, Sussex,

Best place to have a cup of coffee? Sydney or Melbourne. In a Greek or Italian coffee shop. Case closed.

Krishan, Sydney, Australia

I dont know, the same could be asked of why all of our social policies come from the US, why our management models are American. Point in case - we now have a "Czar" for everything, from cleaning streets to packing shelves - an American term that has no cultural basis in our mindset but is now part of our political landscape. Its because its cheaper to take something of someone else's shelf than to pay for developing our own. European models are not only better than American, they are closer to our European identity.

Wasim , Edin, Scotland

The English, like the Americans hate strong taste. When I worked in an office in Luxembourgh I was banned by the staff from filling the cofee machine, because in the words of a colleague "You make English coffee." When I asked rather haughtily what the difference was between English and contential coffee she replied straight back "two scoops"

Damian Hardac, preston, Now England

I agree totally. Betty's tearooms in Harrogate is amazing. Good old british faye. The continental coffee shops are amazing and would be great to see a few similar ones here. Be it French, Italian ...

paula yates, Aylesbury, UK

Isn't this one aspect of the fact that British culture has been taken over by the American model? Food, drink, cinema, television, clothes ... When the government talks about being British what exactly does that mean? Hasn't Britain just become a wannabe American?

It's one of the many reasons why I and an increasing number of others are leaving in droves to seek something better. Which includes a proper cup of coffee drunk in civilised surroundings.

Derek Morris, Salies de Bearn, France

The clue is in the name. It appears to have been designed to extract cash from (mostly) vacuous women who have had their brain replaced with frothy warm milk. "You think you are a "star"? so give us your "bucks"". One Â£3 latte a day for a working life of 45 years and these women will still have froth for brains but Starbucks will have extracted more cash from them than they paid for their house.

john smith, manchester, uk

Britain has a history of importing and worshiping everything that is crap from the USA while generally ignoring what is good about that wonderful country and the worrying thing is that the rest of Europe seems to be going the same way. You cannot blame the Americans, after all we are supposedly an older and wiser society and should know better than try to ape what is still really an adolescent ex colony.

jerym eedy, caerphilly, UK

To add a touch of exotic ethnicity and grandeur with finesse of favour and taste of the East, one should plan to visit a Turkish Chai-bar (a tea lounge) or some coffee and samavar shop in Kashmir or the far east. They are not so bland and strereo-typed like a Starbucks or Barrista lounge, with lots of wooden panellings, chunks of American furniture and paintings from the wild west and a very straight-jacketed cold-hearted ambience of priggish snobbery. The tea servers and bar tenders of the East carry a warmth of feelings and emotions of hospitality .Well for the cost of a hot cuppa of tea, they ain't as dear as 3-5 pounds a serving or wads and loads of greenbucks to thin out one's wallet. Turkish chai bar looks like some age old tavern from the Ottoman empire , with gush of winds blowing on one's face from wainscotted windows.One can also order fish fillets or bar-be-cued kebabs to add a hearty snack to evening tea soiree.It is a whole new world of experience.Beware of swindlers

sandy, New Delhi, India

I sympathise with your Easter angst. Check out Britain's 80-year old Easter Act, 1928.

This simple Act says that Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first day of April, but the Act only becomes operative after an Order before Parliament - which has never been laid, for fear of upsetting God botherers.

Drew, London,

When I got to England in 2000, there was nothing but the local corner shop with horrible burnt coffee and froth if you were lucky. I spent the next 6 months hiding out in Bar Italia Soho where they make great Italian coffee and have been going there for the past 50 years so. There are good places in London!

jah, London, uk

The best coffee is still to be found in Italy. One of the best espressos I have ever had was in Foggia in southern Italy. It was full of flavour, not a hint of bitterness and was served with freshly baked pastries, which were small refined things made on the premises, not voluminous chemical tinkerings from some evil mastermind's lab. Why have we looked west for coffee inspiration when we could have travelled a couple of hours eastwards and fallen over 400 years' experience and passion? The seduction (and mirage) of consistency wins the day.

Chris, London,

Thank you. I've never been to Starbucks- the prices are already a deterrent - , and now I shall never go.

Julia Iskandar, London, England

Don't blame Americans for your obesity, Lardo. We watch "You Are What You Eat" here and know that you're fat because of your love of Fry Ups and take away curries.

GTS, NYC, USA

Sorry but if you're so stupid as to pay 3 pounds for a glass of sugary, "coffee"-flavoured milk (probably with lots of artificial additives in it, too), you've given away the right to complain about it making you fat. It's like with junk food from the two well-known (also overpriced) American "restaurant" chains. If you eat their stuff too often, you'll get stomach problems and a hole in your wallet. So where's the news? That junk food and junk beverages actually really are a bad choice?

Matt, Berlin (ex Wuerzburg), Germany

I went into a Starbucks recently and was taken aback at the huuuge volumes they sell in a cuppa. I only requested a basic expresso and was asked if i wanted a medium or large [don't remember being asked for small?] but when it came I checked that I hadn't inadvertantly being given a XXLarge instead, as it seemed about half a pint in there!

This is grossly far too much surely? I left half of it, which galled me as the price was rather extortionate too, considering I only wanted to wet me whistle. Last time for me. Wait till I get home next time.

And don't start me on the huuuge volumes of liquid and popcorn being vendered in cinemas in the UK...You would need a family of three to attempt to down one of their medium soft drinks in one sitting!

Fanny, cardiff, uk

Having sampled the coffee shop's in Amsterdam (the real one's not the naughty one's), and also those in Paris, London and Tokyo on my travels. I say bring on the continental model's. Here in Melbourne we have the usual US brand name places, so i say find yourself a good pattisiere or greek or middle eastern place and try their's, you won't go back to good old US dishwater masquerading as coffee again.

Viva la dark roast
Martin CClose
Melbourne AUS

martin close, melbourne, australia

I really enjoyed reading this, it's so funny. It summed up everything about Starbucks and had an insightful conclusion. Please write more articles in this way.

James, Bangkok,

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Janice Turner

Janice Turner joined The Times in 2003 from The Guardian, and writes mainly, but not exclusively, on family matters and women's issues. Her column appears on Saturdays