
Why Espressos in America Are Not Good? - sinzone
https://medium.com/@sinzone/why-is-espresso-in-america-so-bad-b0606d8ddeb5#.yhv9khkls
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hourislate
I'm not going to get into the details about the finer points of making
espresso but the author has no idea what he is talking about or has not
visited a decent cafe.

I have enjoyed espresso for many years from little Italian bakeries in Toronto
and Montreal, to wonderful coffee shops in DFW, Austin and almost every place
I have ever been in America and Canada does it right.

About the only thing I can agree with is that Starbucks is swill. It is like
drinking poison once you have enjoyed a good espresso or for that matter
coffee.

Starbucks along with all chains use essence to make their coffee taste the
same everywhere. It is flavored and doesn't require a high grade of coffee
bean.

My advice is to visit these small micro roasters that create some the best
espresso in the world. Better than anything you can find in Italy.

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sinzone
What you think is good coffee...simply it's not.

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hourislate
I beg to differ. I have experienced coffee through out Europe (France,
England, Italy, Switzerland, Finland, Poland and even Ukraine) and while I
don't have any complaints, the coffee I have had from some of the local
roasters in DFW is the best I have found in the last 30 years.

So I think you are wrong just like the author of that silly article.

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PaulHoule
My take on it is that Americans were introduced to the Espresso bar by
Starbucks but since then the quality of other coffee places has improved
dramatically and now Starbucks is the last place you want to get coffee unless
you are stuck at a hotel that has percolator coffee which has insufficient
caffeine to get a buzz.

Part of the issue is that Starbucks buys in such large quantities that it
can't possibly get the best beans.

My impression also are than both New York and San Francisco have worse coffee
than average than the U.S. I think part of it is that Starbucks has saturated
those markets so that stock market analysts will say, "Starbucks is doing
great, there are five of them on the same block as my apartment and four on
the same block as my office."

Most of those people never go to the 49 flyover states (including 0.5 of NY
and CA each) so they think the rest of the country has as many Starbucks and
the stock stays high.

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sinzone
Yes, I was actually not counting Starbucks/similar chains at all in my
analysis. I consider them more McDonalds rather than a real coffee bar.

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VeejayRampay
French here, can definitely second that, American coffee has improved a lot in
the past years, but despite trying extremely hard, it just falls short. All
cafés, brasseries and bistros in France use Cimbali, it's the best, made by
the best.

