Where in Japan? I just got back from visiting Tokyo and Kyoto and there are loads of good places to drink coffee. In Tokyo a few of my favourites were Bear Pond Espresso, Omotesando Koffee, Maruyama Coffee but there are a multitude of great places.
If you're interested in Japanese coffee culture you should read Merry White's Coffee Life in Japan which shows how rich Japanese coffee culture is and how it has influenced the recent speciality coffee movement in the US including popular places like Blue Bottle.
Those are in central Tokyo I think? There are a few decent places here (I've just moved to Setagaya) but outside of central Tokyo (I was living in North Tokyo) it's a different story. Even around here, if you just walk into a random chain, I think you'll find the coffee is markedly worse than Starbucks.
I'm not saying the Kissatens generally in Japan aren't great, they are! I love them to bits. They serve good food are independently run and have a really nice casual atmosphere and friendly owners, and unique character quite often with children and or dogs running around...
But the coffee often isn't that great, they can be quite smokey (Starbucks is the only nonsmoking coffee shop I've found in Japan) and the vast majority don't have wifi. I can see why a "digital nomad" might be attracted to Starbucks you know what you'll get and you can hang around working without feeling bad.
Thanks for the recommendations, I'll try and check them out.
Not at all, like nlativy says coffeshops are everywhere in Tokyo. Yes, most are smoky, but completely separated smoking areas and even completely non-smoking places are becoming more common. Also, some mom-and-pop coffeeshops have very good coffee, including a good variety of beans. For me, the main problem isn't quality, it's price. I don't want to pay 400~500 for a cup of coffee.
In any case, if you care at all about coffee why would you even consider Nescafe as an alternative, instead of good old brewed coffee?
Because everyone in Japan does not live in central Tokyo and outside central Tokyo decent coffee is rare. By Nescafe I mean that some of the the coffee I've been served is on par with Nescafe...
I recently stayed at an organic coffee plantation in Costa Rica and was educated on the nuances of coffee. Starbucks tells its roasters to roast the beans more than what is optimal. The reason is heat expands so a larger bean is the result which means more grind and therefore higher yields/profits per bean. The upshot of this is that Starbucks coffee is bitter and requires sugars and creams - hence all of the flavour concoctions they sell.
Their blonde roast is the only roast they sell that comes from beans roasted optimally.
Other interesting things I learned:
- coffee beans are actually the pits of a cherry plant
- the higher the bean is grown from sea level, the better the quality
- good beans roasted properly create a coffee that is naturally sweet requiring no additional flavours or creams and tastes great just black
- Ily, the Italian coffee brand, sells one of the highest quality coffee grinds you can get from a supermarket
- coffee commodity prices are cyclical and producers will hold back or flood the market depending on the commodity price. As a result, you can time which beans will be fresh and which ones will be stale because they were held back during low price periods
Illy is my favorite bean. It's just so damn expensive in the US ($15 - $20 for a standard size bag). Ironically, in Italy, it's considered the cheap, everyman's coffee.
Wrong: if you go in a bar and order an Illy espresso you'll pay more or less 1 euro. This price is the same as any other brand, even the cheapest ones.
There seem to be no price difference in Italy based on brand (in bars). If you go to Venice St. Marco's square where a coffee at the table will cost you easily 8 euro, and you order it at the bar ans drink it standing (the standard way), it will still cost you 1 euro.
It's like a political price, as could be beer in Prague or fried rice in Bangkok. Don't touch those prices or you'll get a revolution :)
Right: at the supermarket Illy is one of the most expensive brands. It's about 5,5 euro for 250 grams, compared to 3 euro for a good Arabica brand or even 2 euro for a cheap brand.
Mind: the bar and the supermarket Illy coffees are different, the bar version being much superior.
I like Illy (if you love it, you may want to go to Trieste and enjoy it there) but I still prefer to get it freshly grinded from somebody who toasts in place. I especially like one in Venice, where it goes from 12 to 25 per Kg, the good one costing as much as the Illy.
Nothing compares to a freshly grinded good coffee.
I thought they burnt their beans A) because the flavor last longer for stored beans and B) so you can still taste the coffee in 12 ounces of cream and sugar.
They make a reliable coffee, which is in many ways more important to me than it being "amazing" coffee.
similar to OP, I travel constantly for work. seeing the big Starbucks logo is a huge comfort. I think one aspect is down to the training. Starbucks employers know how to serve up their mediocre coffee, and that appreciate. I can't count the times that I've been in a random city, decided to try a local place for coffee, and then had to explain why I didn't want to put raw sugar in my iced coffee. There's a pretty key attribute involved in quickly dissolving sugar in a liquid. The "ice" is not one of those attributes. Even places like dunkin donuts fail to train their employees on the sugar dissolving mechanics. Starbucks allows me to order a coffee and then actually drink it, rather than chew it...
I travel heavily as well, and I can't think of any trip recently that did not include a Starbucks visit (FWIW, Panera is my other go-to). I know what I'm going to get (and not get) when I go there, and the last thing I need on the road is more random variables.
When I am at home, I stop in every day at a local small coffee shop that imports their own beans, roasts them, etc. The coffee is WAY better than anything at Starbucks. But independent places can be very hit or miss (as you note). I wouldn't go to an independent coffee shop on the road unless it came highly recommended by someone local.
I don't go to Starbucks because it's the best possible cup, I go there because it's the best possible consistent experience.
If Internet access and a power outlet are what you need, pretty much any café or restaurant in any developed or developing country can take care of your needs these days.
This is not true. In Japan Starbucks is one of the few coffee shops chains that offer free wifi, and they only started doing that recently. Reasonable coffee is relatively thin on the ground in Japan as well, Starbucks is really the only chain you can go to and know you'll get a decent coffee.
As far as I can tell they are the only coffee shops that are completely non-smoking too, which might be important to some people.
In the UK, all cafes are non-smoking by law and many have wifi. I appreciate the US based nomad's desire for comfort (I once had to airmail Marmite and Typhoo tea to a friend working in Odessa) but would suggest trying some of the independents in the larger UK cities. Leaf in Liverpool and Yorks Bakery Cafe in Birmingham spring to mind.
yep, there are more decent coffee shops in the UK, even so decent independents can be hard to find.
There was an interesting blog post about Yelp a while back. He talked about how Starbucks and Yelp were trying to solve the same problem in different ways. Yelp's solution was to help you find something like your favourite coffee shops when away from home. Starbucks to build the same thing everywhere. :)
I'm not sure I buy it, but it's an interesting way of thinking about it.
Starbucks has more competition across the straight in China, but not much. They are the only chain that opens "early" at 7AM, which is important if surface traffic gets bad at 7:30. Wifi is going downhill because of the Chinese government, but they seem to be backing away from the ridiculous "use your phone to login to wifi" access points.
Now if only they would give us real Chai Tea Lattes, life would be perfect.
Availability varies quite a bit between countries. Take two adjacent European countries, Denmark and Germany. In Denmark, free wifi is ubiquitous, often without even a login needed. Coffee shops, restaurants, bars, libraries, trains, even city buses provide it. But in neighboring Germany, wifi is usually pay if available at all (and not cheap pay!), and the few places with free wifi will typically require you to get a code from the cashier when you purchase something.
I wish some ethnographer of technology would study this. What predisposes a region/culture towards open or closed wifi?
Still, the answers might be simple. I recently stayed as an AirBnB guest in Berlin, and my host recounted receiving notice of a €1000 fine, due to some p2p TV episode downloading one of his previous guests may have done using his internet connection. He may have options to avoid responsibility, but the local presumptions seem against him... and just a few anecdotes like that could explain why now, in another part of Berlin, my laptop sees 20+ SSIDs, all locked down.
The laws on liability do definitely differ. The situation is murky in many countries, but it's not in Germany, where operators of open wifi networks are clearly considered responsible for illegal activity that takes place on them: http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.10/wifi-case-germany-co...
In Denmark I believe there's no bright-line rule either way, but there is no automatic liability. In practice there haven't been high-profile rulings going against open network operators (at least, not yet) to scare people off.
This could be said for McDonalds, Coke, or any other brand you personally prefer, or are looking for. The most fun, i've found, are youtube videos showing americans living abroad and finding american food in the ethnic food sections [0][1].
Duh. This is what the franchising is all about - providing consistent branded experience across all outlets. And, yes, one of the prime benefits is that it provides a sense of familiarity regardless of location.
(edit) Another take on the title though - Starbucks main problem is that it does in fact try to be more than coffee. I really wish they weren't publicly traded and didn't have the pressure of growing revenues. I was a loyal customer for several years (2 visits per workday, $10 a pop), but then they started venturing in movie promotion (remember the "Spelling bee" bullshit printed all over the cups?), then they decided that Copehangen danishes were less preferable than overpriced ready-made paninis, after that - low-cal mystery-ingredient polymer-based sweets took over a quarter of the pastry space. Then, finally, they dropped Coffee from the name in preparation for being much more than coffee, i.e. booze. It went downhill so rapidly that it was painful to see. It used to be a nice place with an ugly logotype to visit, but now it's just the logotype.
Many years ago I read a book, possibly McDonalds: Behind the Arches [1], that said a big part of the early growth of McDonalds was by building next to the rapidly expanding freeway system, and a big draw for customers was the restrooms that were kept in a spotless state.
Ray A Kroc, the guy responsible for McDonalds being McDonalds, believed that if you used clean restrooms to get people in the draw, they'd probably buy some soda or fries when they were in your store. It's hinted at in a quote from this other book [2]. And Wikipedia mentions that "[he] remained active in Des Plaines until the end of his life, frequently phoning the manager of the store across the street to remind him to clean his restaurant properly." [3]
I guess standards have slipped, though. I've been in McDonalds restrooms that would have Ray A Kroc roll over in his grave.
This is an interesting point of view, and almost exactly the opposite of mine.
I also travel a lot and I love it. I travel in order to experience new cultures, people, food and drink. The last thing I want to see when I have traveled half way across the world is something that I see on my own freaking street.
The smallest and most remote places in the world seem to have widely available wireless internet access in lots of coffee shops, pubs, restaurants and bus terminals. I'd much rather support the local, little guys when travelling. It's usually cheaper, tastier and you meet many more amazing people inside. You're right in saying that Starbucks is consistent, but for me half the fun of travelling is playing menu roulette and seeing what you end up with.
I do understand the occasional need for a "taste of home", a haven of comfort if you will (In my case, hunting for a full English breakfast after days of eating fish and rice). I guess the line between "a recognizable, familiar, and reliable brand" and "overarching corporate crusher of culture" seems a little blurred to me.
when you are not traveling just for the sake of traveling, you are definitely looking for the comfort of the familiarity.
if you are on leisure trip overseas you would not want to have the exact same experience that you have at home, you seek something novel. but when you are doing frequent business trips that you didn't want to go on first place and you don't have much time for anything other than work you don't want to do risky stuff. all your mind is over the thing you are supposed to do and you just want some "home comfort" to refresh yourself and get your mind ready for the task.
But then one day wandering around an unfamiliar area in a city in China, desperately needing to go to the bathroom, I could only find bathrooms that were (a) locked; or (b) without toilet paper. Things were about to get really embarrassing, in a foreign city, far from where I was staying.
Then, I spotted a Starbucks. It had a clean, unlocked, well-stocked bathroom I could use even before a purchase. It was like an oasis in the desert.
Starbucks earned a *-ton of brand loyalty from me that day.
so i dont get it - a 3 paragraph long self-posted article about how the OP likes starbucks cause he likes to charge his battery there is on the front page?!
How to write a wildly popular blog post: say something that resonates with a lot of people with just enough detail to leave room for others fill in the blanks.
I'm far from a diehard patriot but one thing I truly love about 'this american life' is the café sitting culture. On the daily I downright camp out at the many and diverse local cafés in Richmond, VA. As far as I can tell from my travel experience in a number of European countries, the long staying café visits I, and many of my peers enjoy, is somewhat unique to American culture. In some senses I think the 'Starbucks Experience' the OP is after is really the license to safely linger for extended lengths beyond what you'd feel comfortable doing in any other local, non-chain joint.
And for what it's worth, you won't catch me in a Starbucks.
I have no idea where you got that idea from? I was under the impression that it's more or less the other way around. Of course it's somewhat different between countries and during summer there's few people around in general. Also Arab countries have a strong coffehouse culture.
"There’s nothing worse than being in a foreign city with a dead phone. It’s almost terrifying at times."
OK kid, it wasn't that bad, believe it or not we survived pretty well. Travel used to be an adventure. Part of the adventure was being scared, at least a little bit, sometimes. Kind of an extreme sport.
I am old enough to have traveled quite a bit before and after cellphones and have noticed that the magic talisman of a smart phone makes travel dramatically more boring for me. I also spend a lot less time planning, I'll just figure it out onsite with my phone. I miss the daydreaming/planning phase.
Phone reliance while traveling has effects far beyond just using the GPS to figure out where you are.
I would theorize the lack of fear due to having phones results in the hard core travelers taking even crazier adventures, and a lot of non-hard core travelers doing more travel because the "scary" drops below their personal threshold for "scary".
The author's story was really about his magical phone.
This was an interesting read. For a person who's always lived in a city with no or only one or two Starbucks, it's a completely different experience.
The first time I visited in Starbucks was when I visited Berkeley last spring. I have to say I care about my coffee a lot, I like to do my own cappuccinos and espresso shots and I love cafeterias where they have excellent coffee and good baristas. Starbucks was such a disappointment. If I pay so much for my coffee I expect to get the best out of it. Sadly I can do better myself, so I don't think I'll visit Starbucks any more.
Nothing wrong with this of course, but your life experiences might be richer if you also checked out some local coffee shops once in a while, in the USA as well as overseas.
Bonus: many of them have free wifi without requiring those annoying t&cs....
This is an embodiment of the American tourist stereotype to an extent that makes it funny — despite, or maybe because of being a very polite attempt to rationalize it.
Why leave your country when wherever you go, the first step is to look for it again?
There are local coffee shops in every country. In most cases they have a great atmosphere, most of them have wi-fi, most of them will let you charge your phone. All of them have… yes, coffee, often served in local ways — an opportunity to learn something about the culture. They will understand your order, no need to worry about your foreign language skills. Most countries have Starbucks-style coffee shops too these days, blended with a dash of local style.
If you go abroad and go to Starbucks, are you any different to those dreadful low-life tourists spending their holidays abroad in their respective country pubs, drinking their home beer like they never left for holidays in the first place?
Last time I was abroad and went to Starbucks dragged in by friends I felt like a loser. In part I guess, for having uninspiring friends. It could also be because I overpaid roughly by 250-300%, compared with prices in those lovely local cafes in the area.
I appreciate the warm tone of your article, clearly it's coming from a good place. But if you're in a coffee country like Italy and get your coffee at Starbucks, you're dead to me! ;)
Apologies for my patronising tone, it was meant to be somewhat warm too…
43 comments
[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 85.0 ms ] threadIf you're interested in Japanese coffee culture you should read Merry White's Coffee Life in Japan which shows how rich Japanese coffee culture is and how it has influenced the recent speciality coffee movement in the US including popular places like Blue Bottle.
I'm not saying the Kissatens generally in Japan aren't great, they are! I love them to bits. They serve good food are independently run and have a really nice casual atmosphere and friendly owners, and unique character quite often with children and or dogs running around...
But the coffee often isn't that great, they can be quite smokey (Starbucks is the only nonsmoking coffee shop I've found in Japan) and the vast majority don't have wifi. I can see why a "digital nomad" might be attracted to Starbucks you know what you'll get and you can hang around working without feeling bad.
Thanks for the recommendations, I'll try and check them out.
In any case, if you care at all about coffee why would you even consider Nescafe as an alternative, instead of good old brewed coffee?
Their blonde roast is the only roast they sell that comes from beans roasted optimally.
Other interesting things I learned:
- coffee beans are actually the pits of a cherry plant
- the higher the bean is grown from sea level, the better the quality
- good beans roasted properly create a coffee that is naturally sweet requiring no additional flavours or creams and tastes great just black
- Ily, the Italian coffee brand, sells one of the highest quality coffee grinds you can get from a supermarket
- coffee commodity prices are cyclical and producers will hold back or flood the market depending on the commodity price. As a result, you can time which beans will be fresh and which ones will be stale because they were held back during low price periods
Wrong: if you go in a bar and order an Illy espresso you'll pay more or less 1 euro. This price is the same as any other brand, even the cheapest ones. There seem to be no price difference in Italy based on brand (in bars). If you go to Venice St. Marco's square where a coffee at the table will cost you easily 8 euro, and you order it at the bar ans drink it standing (the standard way), it will still cost you 1 euro. It's like a political price, as could be beer in Prague or fried rice in Bangkok. Don't touch those prices or you'll get a revolution :)
Right: at the supermarket Illy is one of the most expensive brands. It's about 5,5 euro for 250 grams, compared to 3 euro for a good Arabica brand or even 2 euro for a cheap brand.
Mind: the bar and the supermarket Illy coffees are different, the bar version being much superior.
I like Illy (if you love it, you may want to go to Trieste and enjoy it there) but I still prefer to get it freshly grinded from somebody who toasts in place. I especially like one in Venice, where it goes from 12 to 25 per Kg, the good one costing as much as the Illy. Nothing compares to a freshly grinded good coffee.
similar to OP, I travel constantly for work. seeing the big Starbucks logo is a huge comfort. I think one aspect is down to the training. Starbucks employers know how to serve up their mediocre coffee, and that appreciate. I can't count the times that I've been in a random city, decided to try a local place for coffee, and then had to explain why I didn't want to put raw sugar in my iced coffee. There's a pretty key attribute involved in quickly dissolving sugar in a liquid. The "ice" is not one of those attributes. Even places like dunkin donuts fail to train their employees on the sugar dissolving mechanics. Starbucks allows me to order a coffee and then actually drink it, rather than chew it...
That's a valuable quality!
I travel heavily as well, and I can't think of any trip recently that did not include a Starbucks visit (FWIW, Panera is my other go-to). I know what I'm going to get (and not get) when I go there, and the last thing I need on the road is more random variables.
When I am at home, I stop in every day at a local small coffee shop that imports their own beans, roasts them, etc. The coffee is WAY better than anything at Starbucks. But independent places can be very hit or miss (as you note). I wouldn't go to an independent coffee shop on the road unless it came highly recommended by someone local.
I don't go to Starbucks because it's the best possible cup, I go there because it's the best possible consistent experience.
As far as I can tell they are the only coffee shops that are completely non-smoking too, which might be important to some people.
In the UK, all cafes are non-smoking by law and many have wifi. I appreciate the US based nomad's desire for comfort (I once had to airmail Marmite and Typhoo tea to a friend working in Odessa) but would suggest trying some of the independents in the larger UK cities. Leaf in Liverpool and Yorks Bakery Cafe in Birmingham spring to mind.
There was an interesting blog post about Yelp a while back. He talked about how Starbucks and Yelp were trying to solve the same problem in different ways. Yelp's solution was to help you find something like your favourite coffee shops when away from home. Starbucks to build the same thing everywhere. :)
I'm not sure I buy it, but it's an interesting way of thinking about it.
Now if only they would give us real Chai Tea Lattes, life would be perfect.
Still, the answers might be simple. I recently stayed as an AirBnB guest in Berlin, and my host recounted receiving notice of a €1000 fine, due to some p2p TV episode downloading one of his previous guests may have done using his internet connection. He may have options to avoid responsibility, but the local presumptions seem against him... and just a few anecdotes like that could explain why now, in another part of Berlin, my laptop sees 20+ SSIDs, all locked down.
In Denmark I believe there's no bright-line rule either way, but there is no automatic liability. In practice there haven't been high-profile rulings going against open network operators (at least, not yet) to scare people off.
In Finland there is clear non-liability: http://boingboing.net/2012/05/14/finnish-court-open-wifi-own...
[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywCX6znxUWQ
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmmZ6q8vjeU
Duh. This is what the franchising is all about - providing consistent branded experience across all outlets. And, yes, one of the prime benefits is that it provides a sense of familiarity regardless of location.
(edit) Another take on the title though - Starbucks main problem is that it does in fact try to be more than coffee. I really wish they weren't publicly traded and didn't have the pressure of growing revenues. I was a loyal customer for several years (2 visits per workday, $10 a pop), but then they started venturing in movie promotion (remember the "Spelling bee" bullshit printed all over the cups?), then they decided that Copehangen danishes were less preferable than overpriced ready-made paninis, after that - low-cal mystery-ingredient polymer-based sweets took over a quarter of the pastry space. Then, finally, they dropped Coffee from the name in preparation for being much more than coffee, i.e. booze. It went downhill so rapidly that it was painful to see. It used to be a nice place with an ugly logotype to visit, but now it's just the logotype.
I take mine with Peruvian potatoes, organic hemp seed oil and Mediterranean sea salt, to go, please.
Ray A Kroc, the guy responsible for McDonalds being McDonalds, believed that if you used clean restrooms to get people in the draw, they'd probably buy some soda or fries when they were in your store. It's hinted at in a quote from this other book [2]. And Wikipedia mentions that "[he] remained active in Des Plaines until the end of his life, frequently phoning the manager of the store across the street to remind him to clean his restaurant properly." [3]
I guess standards have slipped, though. I've been in McDonalds restrooms that would have Ray A Kroc roll over in his grave.
[1] http://www.amazon.ca/McDonalds-Behind-John-F-Love/dp/0553347...
[2] http://books.google.ca/books?id=Us2SKv7RWJEC&lpg=PA33...
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kroc
I also travel a lot and I love it. I travel in order to experience new cultures, people, food and drink. The last thing I want to see when I have traveled half way across the world is something that I see on my own freaking street.
The smallest and most remote places in the world seem to have widely available wireless internet access in lots of coffee shops, pubs, restaurants and bus terminals. I'd much rather support the local, little guys when travelling. It's usually cheaper, tastier and you meet many more amazing people inside. You're right in saying that Starbucks is consistent, but for me half the fun of travelling is playing menu roulette and seeing what you end up with.
I do understand the occasional need for a "taste of home", a haven of comfort if you will (In my case, hunting for a full English breakfast after days of eating fish and rice). I guess the line between "a recognizable, familiar, and reliable brand" and "overarching corporate crusher of culture" seems a little blurred to me.
if you are on leisure trip overseas you would not want to have the exact same experience that you have at home, you seek something novel. but when you are doing frequent business trips that you didn't want to go on first place and you don't have much time for anything other than work you don't want to do risky stuff. all your mind is over the thing you are supposed to do and you just want some "home comfort" to refresh yourself and get your mind ready for the task.
But then one day wandering around an unfamiliar area in a city in China, desperately needing to go to the bathroom, I could only find bathrooms that were (a) locked; or (b) without toilet paper. Things were about to get really embarrassing, in a foreign city, far from where I was staying.
Then, I spotted a Starbucks. It had a clean, unlocked, well-stocked bathroom I could use even before a purchase. It was like an oasis in the desert.
Starbucks earned a *-ton of brand loyalty from me that day.
Pun intended?
And for what it's worth, you won't catch me in a Starbucks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/31/business/starbucks-tailors...
http://www.examiner.com/article/european-coffee-culture
http://www.aswetravel.com/cafe-culture-in-europe/
OK kid, it wasn't that bad, believe it or not we survived pretty well. Travel used to be an adventure. Part of the adventure was being scared, at least a little bit, sometimes. Kind of an extreme sport.
I am old enough to have traveled quite a bit before and after cellphones and have noticed that the magic talisman of a smart phone makes travel dramatically more boring for me. I also spend a lot less time planning, I'll just figure it out onsite with my phone. I miss the daydreaming/planning phase.
Phone reliance while traveling has effects far beyond just using the GPS to figure out where you are.
I would theorize the lack of fear due to having phones results in the hard core travelers taking even crazier adventures, and a lot of non-hard core travelers doing more travel because the "scary" drops below their personal threshold for "scary".
The author's story was really about his magical phone.
The first time I visited in Starbucks was when I visited Berkeley last spring. I have to say I care about my coffee a lot, I like to do my own cappuccinos and espresso shots and I love cafeterias where they have excellent coffee and good baristas. Starbucks was such a disappointment. If I pay so much for my coffee I expect to get the best out of it. Sadly I can do better myself, so I don't think I'll visit Starbucks any more.
Bonus: many of them have free wifi without requiring those annoying t&cs....
Why leave your country when wherever you go, the first step is to look for it again?
There are local coffee shops in every country. In most cases they have a great atmosphere, most of them have wi-fi, most of them will let you charge your phone. All of them have… yes, coffee, often served in local ways — an opportunity to learn something about the culture. They will understand your order, no need to worry about your foreign language skills. Most countries have Starbucks-style coffee shops too these days, blended with a dash of local style.
If you go abroad and go to Starbucks, are you any different to those dreadful low-life tourists spending their holidays abroad in their respective country pubs, drinking their home beer like they never left for holidays in the first place?
Last time I was abroad and went to Starbucks dragged in by friends I felt like a loser. In part I guess, for having uninspiring friends. It could also be because I overpaid roughly by 250-300%, compared with prices in those lovely local cafes in the area.
I appreciate the warm tone of your article, clearly it's coming from a good place. But if you're in a coffee country like Italy and get your coffee at Starbucks, you're dead to me! ;)
Apologies for my patronising tone, it was meant to be somewhat warm too…