Coffee flavoured dessert.

When 90% is some form of cream or sugar, that's not coffee

Yes

I mean, I prefer light roasts where the coffee is more dark brown. But coffee is coffee. It needs no additives. Unless you're talking about a pinch of salt to add to a cold brew.

I don’t understand why anyone goes to Starbucks

Me neither. I still can't figure out why they burn the fuck out of their beans, or who likes that flavor. Outside of some bottom of the barrel instant shit it's literally the worst coffee I've ever had.

I have this conversation with my wife. Her reply is that Starbucks has better ordering infrastructure where she doesn't have to get out of the car when she has the kids. I get that.

I live in Hawai'i. We have locally grown coffee. We have chains that sell said locally grown coffee, located in malls. And you STILL see people lined up at the Starbucks. Branding is a powerful thing. Notice that people who get Starbucks will say "I need a Starbucks" and not "I need a coffee." They've become conditioned to look for that green and that logo.

Having lived in multiple of those countries, lets just say that most of those greens aren't anywhere as green as in a few others and even the most green of all (probably the UK) aren't as green as the US.

For a lot of those countries (which have long traditions of good coffee), Startbucks have only a handful of stores in one or two major cities, mostly frequented by tourists since the locals can get better coffee from local coffee places and its way cheaper.

(Were I am now, Portugal, there's a coffee place just about in every corner in any city, plus restaurants, all serving perfect expressos from Italian made expresso machines, with the most expensive cup in a place like Lisbon costing about €1.20)

You're seriously deceiving yourself if you think there being and handful of Startbuck stores in touristic areas in a country with a strong tradition of coffee drinking is Starbucks being "a thing" there.

Espresso takes more coffee per serving than American drip, so comparing dry is going to he misleading.

No. And it's a crime against coffee and ecology.

Potion of Ventricular Tachycardia (grande)

the americano is named for the us soldiers stationed in italy during wwii who would pour water into their espresso because it was "too strong". it's one part espresso to four parts water.

Yes for the Starbucks addicts and electric wand users, but even black coffee consumers are drinking some mild bean water instead of proper coffee. Even our espresso is weak af most of the time.

I always forget that sugar never left the Americas. But at least you get tea with gag milk!

Haha, amazing

Burnt in this case would be leaving it on the hot plate for too long methinks

Partly over extraction, but mainly all of the "common" coffee here are medium dark or dark roast adjacent blends, which tends towards those maltier, burnt flavors and tends to be "smoother" when mixed with creme and sugar than more fruity light roasts.

There are plenty of light and medium roasts everywhere, but if you dont specify, you will get a darker roast.

As another commenter says, it's their custom of making drip coffee and then leaving it on a hot plate to denature all flavour remaining after the aromatics have been cooked off

No that's health insurance leading to the ability to actually go to the doctor when you're sick

"Americano" got its name from US soldiers coming to France during World War 2. They didn't like our coffee, it was too strong for them. So the French added water and named it "Americano" to mock Americans.