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Comment by djrobstep | Hacker News Reader

Visited Seoul a month ago and there are indeed a crazy number of coffee shops. Quite expensive and very chain-dominated: Starbucks and various clones, I assume because of the prestige factor of being American (completely the opposite to where I'm from, where Starbucks is regarded as undrinkable watery garbage). You have to look a lot harder to find a non-chain shop.

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There are many, but they don't stand out and are out of the way. And it's impossible to tell which ones are good without trying.

Regular ice americano was $4.50-$5.00 there, more than double what I pay in the states. I do ok here in the states riding the healthcare IT gravy choo choo train, and I don't know if i'd ever pay that much for a cup here.

So I was shocked at the number of people that paid $4-$5 for a cup of coffee there.

Come to Australia, $4.00-$4.50 for a flat white/latte.

$5.80 for a medium macchiato at work here in Western Australia

To be fair the standard of coffee in New Zealand and Australia is substantially better than North America and much of Europe. I could only find on-par coffee in specialty cafes in Portland, Vancouver and San Fran on the west coast. You were paying upwards of $5 USD for an espresso, flat white or long black. Max you'll pay for an espresso or long black in Auckland is $3USD (usually around $2.7USD).

In Switzerland, I paid > 10 CHF for a drink and a croissant at Starbucks (and that was...8 years ago).

These days in Zürich you'll pay 5 to 7 francs for a coffee and probably 3 to 4 francs for a gipfel, so that's still pretty much dead on.

Although that is at a real café, not a Starbucks. I haven't been into one for a couple of years so YMMV.

Real European cafes don't seem to believe in plushy comfy chairs...it is one American cultural innovation that I'm greatly addicted to (but I'm also a seattlite).

I know us yanks have it pretty good, with inflated wages and low cost of goods.

Most places actually give you a $1-2 discount if you order "take away".

koreatown in LA has even imported the caffe bene and tom n tom's chains from korea. bene is a little nicer, but neither place has great coffee.

the korean cafe scene here is booming--i'd say document coffee bar is the best right now.

Sounds exactly like Tokyo.

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