# coffee shop hot shots



## Blackstone (Aug 5, 2012)

On BBC 2 now.

Average coffee drinker spends £400 a year and serous drinker spends £1k


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## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

And think what you could get, kit-wise, for a grand.


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## ajh101 (Dec 21, 2013)

Makes my s/h Classic and Mignon look positively penny pinching...


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## Blackstone (Aug 5, 2012)

And how much better it would be than Starbucks


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## IanP (Aug 4, 2011)

Turned it off already! Off to paint a wall and watch it dry







Can't believe quite how shallow and dreadfully 'BBC' it is. Mr Grumpy


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## Big O (Feb 25, 2014)

IanP said:


> Turned it off already! Off to paint a wall and watch it dry
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I guess I better stop Sky record using up valuable disk space...


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## Blackstone (Aug 5, 2012)

Big O said:


> I guess I better stop Sky record using up valuable disk space...


I still have it on but so far it's really not worth watching. Totally bigging up the high Street chains


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## Macoffee (Oct 23, 2012)

It's hard to watch. Caffe neros expert baristas and all the other chains apparently giving us really high quality coffee. Yuck.


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## DavidBondy (Aug 17, 2010)

I'm still watching it. I can see now that I've been doing it all wrong. I'd get a better cup from the experts at the high street chains! Doh!!!


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## Blackstone (Aug 5, 2012)

DavidBondy said:


> I'm still watching it. I can see now that I've been doing it all wrong. I'd get a better cup from the experts at the high street chains! Doh!!!


Just don't forget to add the syrup


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## DavidBondy (Aug 17, 2010)

Blackstone said:


> Just don't forget to add the syrup


Indeed! Mustn't forget the syrup!


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## Orangertange (Jul 4, 2013)

Who's the dude with the 2 group leaver in the background? Bit blurry but maybe a faema?


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## Blackstone (Aug 5, 2012)

I think that's the owner of espresso service


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## markf1988 (Mar 17, 2014)

haha those vending machines!


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## aaronb (Nov 16, 2012)

All of these people are incredibly irritating. Especially the air head seattle coffee co owners, the costa roaster and that guy with the 2 group lever. grrr


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## oop north (Jun 23, 2013)

Blackstone said:


> On BBC 2 now.
> 
> Average coffee drinker spends £400 a year and serous drinker spends £1k


With my total spend in the last year (gene roaster, SJ grinder and an LI) that makes me a bit more than serious, though next year I might be less than average!


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## radish (Nov 20, 2011)

PR rules the world; lazy researchers lap it up....


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## Blackstone (Aug 5, 2012)

I wonder if any of the next three episodes will actually be about coffee


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

I saw the last 30m of the program...please kill me now.


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## Olliehulla (Feb 26, 2013)

That Costa Express "cappuccino" looked ****ing horrible and the bloke drinking it knew it !! Haha!


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## Olliehulla (Feb 26, 2013)

radish said:


> PR rules the world; lazy researchers lap it up....


The production on the show was lazy too, used some of the incidental "people drinking coffee" shots over and over....


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## Glenn (Jun 14, 2008)

Just remember that we are not the target audience of the show.

How many true car enthusiasts watch Top Gear?


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## Blackstone (Aug 5, 2012)

Glenn said:


> Just remember that we are not the target audience of the show.
> 
> How many true car enthusiasts watch Top Gear?


But wouldn't this have been a good opportunity to celebrate good coffee instead of branded crap


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## Glenn (Jun 14, 2008)

But then the mass public wouldn't be able to relate to the story.


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## aaronb (Nov 16, 2012)

True, but good coffee is becoming more and more mainstream, with people seeking out better coffee.

The small bit on independents was incredibly poor, not sure i'd cast them all as artisan if they're serving illy!

How cringeworthy was starbucks "we like to do the right thing and have done for the past 40 years, so we now pay tax" - yeah you do the right thing when you get shamed in the papers. Not sure I agree with the boycott though, they knew what the laws were and worked it - close the loopholes rather than hate the players.


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## michaelg (Jul 25, 2013)

It was a missed opportunity to show Britain recovering from the recession through entrepreneurship coupled with people pursuing their passion. The message here was "don't stray from the big 3 or you'll be disappointed". No one expected the show to espouse the virtues of microlot single origins in a V60 etc but a nod to a growing trend of disillusionment with the chains might have offered some balance.


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

Glenn said:


> Just remember that we are not the target audience of the show.
> 
> How many true car enthusiasts watch Top Gear?


Unbelievably quite a few that I know love the show...but I digress

That Co%ta Automated Barista machine..the smell of coffee, the sound of the coffee shop, that perfect cup, that guy putting on an Italian accent standing next to sample roasters he never used. Finally topped off by the suit drinking the Cappucino and saying how great it was...but I could see him wincing. I'll bet that machine is as fresh as a daisy after a few weeks of use.

Then I just loved the S%ucks guy, looked as trustworthy as someone out of terminator 2, you know the one looking for John Connor, who was on his 50cc motorcycle with 100 gears. the T1000 of S^%%ks...thanks very much for paying the Tax amounts you decided to give us...and all the great coffee

http://unrealitymag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/terminator-22.jpg

or was it all about food??


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## CrazyH (Jan 14, 2011)

To be fair to the program, it was primarily a show about the UK coffee business and the "Big Four", rather than about coffee itself. The program did seem to assume that the coffee these guys are dishing out is "quality", when in fact it is mostly rubbish, albeit probably better than much of what was there before. A proper bit on the new coffee scene should have been added in, could even have slotted in something about Harris and Hoole/Tesco. It was fairly interesting to see how the big four operate, the layout of Starbucks etc, when you get pus the marketing rubbish and "the customer this" "our customers love" blah

The woman from that branding company was extremely annoying with her pronunciation of ambience and comments generally.

The analysis of the Starbucks tax affair was weak, as if "oh it's OK, they pay tax now" when all they did was choose a tax figure that was probably chosen by a boardroom, calculating how many sales they need to buy back.


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## kikapu (Nov 18, 2012)

CrazyH said:


> To be fair to the program, it was primarily a show about the UK coffee business and the "Big Four", rather than about coffee itself. The program did seem to assume that the coffee these guys are dishing out is "quality", when in fact it is mostly rubbish, albeit probably better than much of what was there before. A proper bit on the new coffee scene should have been added in, could even have slotted in something about Harris and Hoole/Tesco. It was fairly interesting to see how the big four operate, the layout of Starbucks etc, when you get pus the marketing rubbish and "the customer this" "our customers love" blah
> 
> The woman from that branding company was extremely annoying with her pronunciation of ambience and comments generally.
> 
> The analysis of the Starbucks tax affair was weak, as if "oh it's OK, they pay tax now" when all they did was choose a tax figure that was probably chosen by a boardroom, calculating how many sales they need to buy back.


Agree it was really a program about business and how the industry got so big not about coffee.

I had to cringe everytime they said 'good coffee' !!


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## frasermade (Feb 26, 2014)

We are all a slave to convenience it seems, whether it's coffee or no.

I guess no matter what they did with the programme it was never going to cover the spectrum. Go up to anyone in your office and ask them where Rave Coffee is, or what origin their beans are and they'll not know, or more importantly, not care. It tastes good to them, was easy to get and didn't cost (relatively speaking) a lot of money.

In any tract of life there will be the purists, the obsessives and the don't give a damns as long as it's convenient, amongst others.

I am really in to watches - a programme showing Fossil and Hugo Boss as the pinnacle of high street watches would have made the watch equivalent of CFUK go "But what about Nomos or Magrette, they are infinitely more accurate and beautifully made? yeah they may cost 10x the price of a Fossil but it's worth it for the accuracy"

People like us who post on dedicated topic forums are the minority striving to get the best experience from it - not the general mass public who know nothing more than what they can easily get access to, and more's the pity, don't really want to.

That all said - it was boring as sh*t. What about those Seattle folks baggin' £50mil for not a lot of effort! Lovely house mind you. What ho!


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## frasermade (Feb 26, 2014)

As an aside, a guy in my office thinks "Cafe Noir" instant is real coffee.


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## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

frasermade said:


> As an aside, a guy in my office thinks "Cafe Noir" instant is real coffee.


Just what the marketing and advertising people want to hear.


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## 4515 (Jan 30, 2013)

I pitied the poor souls who were cupping that muck every day.

Their sense of taste must me so much better than mine and they subject it to that. They must hate their job


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## CoffeeJohnny (Feb 28, 2011)

watching this now, 15p for milk water and coffee?? struth, no wonder it tastes like crap. Also some spend £2000 on coffee for a year that will be my set up paying for itself a lot quicker than I imagined. Shame that all this is, is an advert for the 3 big chains


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

CoffeeJohnny said:


> watching this now, 15p for milk water and coffee?? struth, no wonder it tastes like crap. Also some spend £2000 on coffee for a year that will be my set up paying for itself a lot quicker than I imagined. Shame that all this is, is an advert for the 3 big chains


I actually feel better and better with every coffee i don't buy from these places. I have only bought 1 Starbucks in 10 years and that was just before Christmas at a motorway service station.....I couldn't drink it and ended up throwing it away. I simply don't use any of the chain coffee shops at all, in fact I rarely buy any coffee out now. I must have saved 10K plus


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## CrazyH (Jan 14, 2011)

I suppose they have their place. I don't really have anything nice to say about Costa, I suppose they do't burn their beans like Starbucks, but that's about it. Nero can give you something that tastes a bit like old school espresso, it's drinkable. Standard Starbucks espresso is pretty bad, it's palatable with milk, every so often you get a barista in there who knows what they are doing, there was one guy who would get the milk bang on for a flat white. Did it taste as good as the upmarket independent places? No, but respectable. The other thing about starbucks sort of has going for it, is that it is the only one to offer a non espresso coffee. Usually it's quite bad, the 'Pike roast place' blend is not good at all but they have some others which are quite drinkable, but they don't really push the filter coffee much, most stores don't bother with having two options any more, I suppose the margin on it is lower as it's cheaper than espresso based offerings.


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## ajh101 (Dec 21, 2013)

Costa and Starbucks are the McD's and Burger King of the coffee world.


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## frasermade (Feb 26, 2014)

One thing the guy (him with the dual lever machine in the background) did say, and I paraphrase:

"Once you climb The Ladder of Coffee, you are rarely able to come down again."

Actually, that's my quote now.



> "Once you climb The Ladder of Coffee, you are rarely able to come down again."
> 
> FraserMade 2014. He was a good soul.


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## EWCC (Mar 27, 2014)

I actually think McCafe does better coffee than Costa and Starbucks, but then everyone can.


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