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Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

I've been hating Starbucks since 1993 where at my first job at a movie theater we shared a trash compactor with them, and those bastards would never press the button, so you had to stand in the smelly garbage room and wait for it to compress their garbage before you could throw yours in. It would be years before I could actually afford to buy a coffee from there.

Now I live in London, and as far as I can tell, all the good coffee is made by Aussies, so I can only imagine how terrible Starbucks is by comparison in your country.

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> Now I live in London, and as far as I can tell, all the good coffee is made by Aussies,

In New York, Swedish coffee (of all things) seems to be the up-and-coming thing:

http://www.fikanyc.com/about

http://www.konditorinyc.com/

No idea why. Scandinavia is exotic and hip these days, probably. Then again, a lot of new Swedish things are popping up, like Swedish pizza places (which, if you haven't had it, mostly revolves around unexpected toppings such as banana, cabbage and kebab meat).

Whoa. I actually got a touch of national pride there! What a feeling! :D

Anyway, one reason Swedish coffee culture might be something that can be noticed in NY is that we're pretty good at drinking coffee.

See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coffee_con...; to get a hint about how important coffee is in Scandinavia.

Sweden is down at #6 these days, but we still clock in at roughly twice the consumption per capita compared to the US.

And the word "fika" which the first place is named for has loads of connotations, it's simply deeply entrenched here.

You need to remove the trailing '>' from your link (or don't put it between angle brackets).

Going by that page perhaps I should start a dutch coffee house in NY!

I wonder if there are many Starbucks in Scandinavia? I know of only one here in the Netherlands.

Hum, there is more than one ... Only in Amsterdam there are at least 2 (went there 2 days ago), one in Central Station and one not far from the Science Museum (that I could see from the train leaving the Central Station :D ). And no doubt there are more in the inner city.

Then there is also at least one in Utrecht Central, so we are down to 3 already.

Anyway, I know it was not your point.

Besides, as a Frenchman (living in the Netherlands), I'm not fond at all of Dutch coffee, but hey, it could probably work in "New Amsterdam" ;)

Norway (#2 in coffee consumption) has a single Starbucks, located in the arrivals hall at Oslo Airport.

I overheard some people recently talking about how they sometimes take the airport express train just to have coffee at Starbucks. Which is just insane, not just because the coffee isn't particularly good (and Oslo has plenty of extremely good barista places) but because a round-trip ticket from Oslo to the airport costs $56 (€46).

I'm Norwegian. We're at #2. Finland leads by a large margin, though.

Whether through politics, skill, or home ground advantage, the Scandinavians have been doing all right in the World Barista Championships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Barista_Championship

So they can at least make a decent cup.

Don't get me wrong, Aussies make amazing coffee. The best coffee comes from a portable stall outside Sydney central station crafted by a Polish Aussie using Campos beans.

Just for the record:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7540480.stm

I'm an Aussie coffee afficionado, and the best coffee I ever had in London was at Monmouth. No idea of the address, but it was about 5mins walk from the modern art museum, on that side of the Thames, near a food market. As if that'll help... :-)

I'm in the US and you have all really got me curious about the Aussie coffee. I too hate Starbucks and find it quite bitterly me a pot that's been on all day).

Unfortunately I just prefer Big Coffees off the shelf brand, but don't know what to try. Just that it's not Starbucks.

Is there somewhere that I can order Aussie coffee from and know its actually the coffee you describe and not just branded 'Aussie'?

There's really no such thing as 'Aussie' coffee, as I doubt coffee is produced in commercial quantities anywhere in Australia, although there are local roasters.

What they are referring to is coffee made by an Australia barista.

Basically, coffee culture is huge in Australia, and being a quality barista is seen as a cool kind of job to have, despite the generally low pay.

It's not unusual on a city street in Australia to have 5 or 6 coffee shops in a row. At this point, they are competing on coffee + barista quality. With this type of competition, the consumer gets well educated on the nuances between cups, and so it goes.

I had no idea this idea of 'the aussie barista' was being exported to the world, but I guess it makes sense.

In reality, what you're probably seeing is the competitive advantage given from a business cluster in Porter speak. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cluster

Ironically it grew out of Italian culture, mainly through immigrants to Australia. While my best coffee experience was still in Italy, generally I find coffee in other parts of the world appalling in comparison, esp in the USA.

>There's really no such thing as 'Aussie' coffee

Demonstrably untrue. Like most coffee producers, a lot of the beans are imported, some of it is grown locally. But they are hand selected, blended and roasted here in Australia and are most definitely produced in commercial quantities to be consumed here and exported as far as Korea.

To name but a few Campos, Sprocket, Lavazza.

Australia has very rich Italian and European cultural heritage which means we cultivated a coffee culture quite early on, relative to other western countries.

@andrewfelix - you're right in that there are specific roasters, but I'm unsure about where they get their beans.

I guess I took 'Aussie' coffee to be places that marketed themselves as 'Australian', or internationally recognised Australian coffee brands. While everyone can find a bottle of Australian wine, and what it means to be Australian wine, defining it for coffee is a difficult task.

dpark, 'Western' is more of a cultural moniker than a geographical moniker.

If you want to get specific about it, all of Europe west of Greenwich is not 'Western' - and that's most of it. Tunisia is definitely Western Hemisphere but you wouldn't call it west.

I recognized Lavazza, so I had to look it up. It's apparently an Italian company, with production in Italy, and seven subsidiaries in other countries (notably not Australia). Probably not the best choice to promote Aussie coffee. The others do seem to be Australian.

By the way, does Australia count as a western nation? It seems to be in the wrong location for that. This is totally tangential to the coffee topic, just something that I found curious.

Culturally western, yes. While we're positioned in 'Oceania', we were settled(invaded?) by the British and had a 'White Australia Policy' up until the 70's, meaning most migrants were of European descent.

Good point on Lavazza, was a bad assumption.

As an American living in Sydney: I've found it to be exactly the opposite. Sure there's a ton of coffee places, but mostly they're the same crappy $4.00 burnt roast. I suspect Melbourne is probably better, but I haven't had enough coffee there to confirm.

My speculation is that this is due to a general lack of hip/divy/young "artisan" cafes/restaurants in Australia (yes, yes, I know there are some, I'm talking purely about prevalence) compared with "hip" American cities. This is particularly true outside of the hip parts of town (Surrey Hills, mostly).

US coffee quality depends greatly on which city you're in, and the barista being a cool job is true in many places as well. The Pacific Northwest (Portland, Seattle -- despite the Starbucks black mark) has really amazing coffee shops, and they're everywhere. If you're ever in Portland, I highly suggest Barista -- http://baristapdx.com/ -- it will change your life.

I have lived in Sydney a long time. I agree. Most of it is not that good. But everywhere you go there is usually at least 1 place that you can count on.

Sadly the best coffee comes from speciality roasters that only sell it over the counter (or wholesale if you own a cafe in the city), so it's hard to get if you're out of town. A few (like Campos and Cleanskin) will ship within Australia though.

I think it's mainly a freshness thing - after resting for four or five days after roasting, coffee is only at its very best for 10 - 20 days at most (as whole beans).

This is the one you're talking about: http://www.monmouthcoffee.co.uk/shops/the-borough

It's very good, but you'll wait a long time on weekends.

Melbourne, Australia appears to be a coffee Mecca. Have the Melbournites moved over there now?

> all the good coffee is made by Aussies

Hold on a sec. What about Italians?

Well I haven't found a real Italian coffee shop in London yet so I can't say. The only Italian joints I've been in have been mom and pop cafe type places. Someone you go for a quick bite. The coffee has been middling at best, certainly no baristas behind the counter.

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