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Comment by manishsharan | Hacker News Reader

I really think all coffee shops should start charging people for loitering long after they have finish their coffee.

I live in Toronto and I can't remember when was the last time my wife and I were able to enjoy a latte while sitting at a Starbucks or Timothys. Nowadays, it seems all coffee shops are overrun with kids doing their homework or whatever. The worst part is that the laptop/tablet people barely make eye contact with others; they are so engrossed in their screen !

Thankfully,we found a smaller coffee shop which does not offer Wifi and where the owners discourage loitering / homeworks.

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When I was at U of T, I used to blame all the coffee shops being filled with students on the university not providing adequate work/study space for its 44,000 students (a few of my friends got banned from a nearby Second Cup after using a booth at the back to solder circuit boards for a design project).

After graduating I moved to the suburbs, where Starbucks is rammed with high school students doing homework but the public library across the street is empty despite having more comfortable seating, faster Wi-Fi and you know, actually being intended as an open public space for quiet reading and study.

Does the library sell good coffee and tea which you're allowed to take to the workspaces, and have pleasant lighting?

My old college's library would allow you to bring in beverages in containers that have tight-fitting lids, and was well-lit and comfortable. It was also jammed with students in there studying at all hours. The university I live near now allows zero food or beverages and has cheap, eye strain inducing fluorescent lighting, and it's a ghost town. The only reason I spend any time studying there is that as a non-student I'm not allowed to check out books.

Does the library sell good coffee and tea...

Starbucks doesn't sell good coffee and tea and yet they are packed. It must be something else.

Subjective, and goodness of coffee is not binary. Starbucks coffee is, IMO, better than what you find at most "affordable" restaurants, sandwich shops, diners, etc.

If you a coffee connoisseur, it may not be good. But most people aren't, they just want something better than Folgers.

There's also the McDonald's effect: it may not be great, but it's pretty much the same everywhere. You know what you are going to get before you go in.

Many 3 star restaurants serve Nespresso. So yes, good coffee can be found in many places.

Nespresso isn't that great either.

For judging what is good coffee, I'm gonna go with the taste of the chefs of those 3 star restaurants, rather than with icebraining on hacker news.

If you actually read why they pick Nespresso, "the best taste" is not part of the reasons. They cite size, cost, consistency, usability, etc.

"in our business, you spend so much time trying to be perfect with food and service that it's very hard to put the same dedication into a coffee program."

Don't get me wrong, it's better than what I drink at home, but it's hardly great coffee.

Do you really think that at 3 star restaurants, where they have about 5 staff per customer, they would serve Nespresso if they thought it isn't good coffee? Sure, it may not be the best coffee in the world, but even 3 star restaurants, which usually spare any expense to improve the quality do not think it is economical to make better coffee themselves. Do they think that Nespresso doesn't have good taste and just "consistency"? Of course not.

Can you show me any evidence that better coffee can be obtained in a reasonable other way?

I know it is romantic to think that you can make better coffee yourself, but lets see what you're up against. Nespresso burns and grinds and vacuum seals coffee that is then placed into a machine that delivers a fixed amount of water at a particular speed and temperature. All the parameters in this process have been tuned by professionals backed up by panels of taste testers. Being at home gives you no particular advantage. Why would a restaurant be able to do better, let alone significantly better, at a reasonable price and effort? Contrast this with, for instance, making bread. Bread tastes 10 times better when it is fresh. Unlike coffee, vacuum sealing a bread is impossible. So even if a factory managed to bake a bread with perfectly tuned parameters, by the time that bread is on your table it doesn't taste great anymore. Coffee simply doesn't have this.

Do you really think that at 3 star restaurants, where they have about 5 staff per customer, they would serve Nespresso if they thought it isn't good coffee?

It doesn't matter what I think, you can read what they said. Of course it's not Starbucks quality level, but it's not great coffee, just good enough for the other qualities to win over better tasting coffees.

Can you show me any evidence that better coffee can be obtained in a reasonable other way?

Sure, the way multiple coffee shops do so here: you buy a decent Italian espresso machine (such as a La Marzocco), you get a few baristas with a couple of decades or more of experience serving coffee, buy decent beans and grind them yourself daily.

Of course, this isn't reasonable if you're a restaurant which serves a few dozen cups a day, which are just a small part of the whole "product". But for a dedicated coffee shop, which might serve more than a hundred per day, the costs are reasonable.

I know it is romantic to think that you can make better coffee yourself

I didn't say that. I have a capsule machine myself. But I don't need to make better coffee to know that better coffee is made.

Nespresso burns and grinds and vacuum seals coffee that is then placed into a machine that delivers a fixed amount of water at a particular speed and temperature. All the parameters in this process have been tuned by professionals backed up by panels of taste testers.

Sure, Nespresso is a great value for its price. But nothing in that process is better than what I'm describing.

Why would a restaurant be able to do better, let alone significantly better, at a reasonable price and effort?

Not restaurant, coffee shop. And I don't know what you consider "reasonable". The reason they do better is because they have different constraints in terms of space, marginal costs per cup and importance of the coffee to their line up, which allows them to invest more in it.

Coffee simply doesn't have this.

Grinding many days in advance, even if vacuum sealed, does have an effect on the taste.

> Sure, the way multiple coffee shops do so here: you buy a decent Italian espresso machine (such as a La Marzocco), you get a few baristas with a couple of decades or more of experience serving coffee, buy decent beans and grind them yourself daily.

So which part of this makes the coffee better than Nespresso? Is the espresso machine doing something better than a nespresso machine? I don't think so. Are the beans being grinded better than in a nespresso factory? I don't think so. Are the beans themselves of higher quality than the ones that nespresso uses? Perhaps, though unlikely to be a significant difference unless you are willing to pay a much higher price, and even then. Even if these is some small advantage that the barista can have, does that weigh against the advantages that Nespresso has, namely being able to perfectly tune the whole process with taste testers?

> Grinding many days in advance, even if vacuum sealed, does have an effect on the taste.

Why? What is the difference between a coffee particle sitting "inside" a bean, and sitting tightly packed in a vacuum? And if there is an important difference, why is the former better? For all we know it tastes worse.

There is at least one blind taste test that was done: http://aeon.co/magazine/being-human/julian-baggini-coffee-ar...

Admittedly not very scientific with a low sample size, but the result of this test was that Nespresso is better than the coffee of an experienced barista. At the very least there isn't an obvious perceptible difference in favor of the barista. Do you know of any blind taste tests showing the opposite?

Is the espresso machine doing something better than a nespresso machine? I don't think so.

Why not? Why is it so hard to believe that an hand-made machine that costs an order of magnitude more can actually produce a better result?

For example, the size allows the La Marzocco to have two different water heating chambers at different temperatures, which is impossible with the size of a Nespresso.

Even if these is some small advantage that the barista can have, does that weigh against the advantages that Nespresso has, namely being able to perfectly tune the whole process with taste testers?

It can't perfectly tune the process, because the machine itself isn't perfectly tuned. It's designed to be cheap, small and easy to mass-produce.

They do a great job, but the constraints are simply different.

Why? What is the difference between a coffee particle sitting "inside" a bean, and sitting tightly packed in a vacuum?

Because the exposure to some air has already happened, and the process doesn't stop after you closed it in vaccum (which itself is never perfect).

Do you know of any blind taste tests showing the opposite?

A simple search links to http://www.choice.com.au/reviews-and-tests/food-and-health/f...

By the way, from your link:

The key descriptors for Nespresso were ‘smooth’ and ‘easy to drink’. And from the point of view of restaurateurs who use it, the key word is ‘consistency’. It was far from bland, but it was not challenging or distinctive either. It’s a coffee everyone can really like but few will love: the highest common denominator, if you like

Sounds right.

I think you missed the joke. Here in Seattle, it is trendy to look down on Starbucks, that is all.

Totally agree about the McDonald's effect. When traveling I am often happy to enter the Mermaid's consistent embrace.

I don't look down on Starbucks because it's trendy, but because the coffee is poorer than even average cafés in my city...

You can see just from looking in the grinders that their beans are over-roasted (which I guess improves consistency but destroys flavour) and they make up for that with syrups huge amounts of milk.

>and they make up for that with syrups huge amounts of milk

Pretty sure there's no syrup or milk in my coffee when they hand it to me over the counter at my local starbucks.

Mass market coffee.

I have huge respect for what Starbucks does. For decades, most roasters got their start at Starbucks or Tullys.

In the 10 million pounds of beans Starbucks buys every year, there's some percentage that must be awesome. Buying for myself, I'll get seasonals, varietals, vs the blends. Panama, harar, sumatra. Starbucks also sells whole bean light roast for tastes like my gf's, like the blond, which is sometimes available as drip over the counter.

But mostly I buy either Herkimer or Lighthouse. They're indies, who obsess over the product, from purchasing thru roasting thru pulling the shots.

herkimercoffe.com

lighthouseroasters.com

I'm reminded of this comic:

http://en.ilovecoffee.jp/posts/view/71

To me, good coffee means unadulterated as much as using high quality ingredients/equipment and having lots of caffeine.

> Starbucks doesn't sell good coffee and tea and yet they are packed.

Arguably, the first clause of that sentence is disproved by the second one.

I'm not particularly fond of Starbucks coffee, either. But clearly plenty of people are, and their preferences are no less valid than mine.

This assumes that people are going there for the drinks. Given the statement by the parent poster, it seems that they're hanging around long after they've finished their drinks, so that's probably not the reason they're there.

Central Library in Indianapolis sells food and drinks, and has nicer lighting than most coffee shops[1]. Hours are shorter than Starbucks, though.

[1] http://tinyurl.com/centralgoogletour

I honestly think public libraries should be allowed to use some of their money to advertise and create a brand for themselves. For a lot of people the thing deterring the usage of library is simply the idea that it's unexciting or doesn't offer enough, while usually a coffee shop is pretty much equal or worse. Of course it'll lead to people complaining how their tax money is being used for ads, but it makes libraries reach a larger audience and, in economic terms, improves well-being of more people.

Are there such arbitrary restrictions on budget spending by public libraries (in which states, or is that a federal thing)? I can accept that public libraries might be somewhat underfunded, and choose to not advertise -- but it sounds strange that they are somehow forbidden to do so? (At least here in Norway most of the public libraries does quite a lot of advertising -- it's hard to imagine any service remaining visible if it's banned from marketing...).

I believe (from second-hand sources) that many libraries in the US are required by their funders (state and municipal governments) to spend a certain fraction of their budgets on buying books.

Well, that doesn't sound too crazy ("you need to spend some part of your budget on actually being a library") -- but that shouldn't exclude all marketing -- unless that fraction is very high indeed...?

I'd gladly pay for guaranteed work-space on an hourly basis and get complimentary coffee, more so than the inverse.

Coffee shops like Starbucks or Timothys are were not meant to be a work space . What bugs me is that coffee-shops used to play an important role in the community. Its where you went to dish the dirt, catch up with the neighborhood. It was like a bar for socializing without the alcohol . Now coffee shops are being overrun with laptop/tablet people working remotely seeking a work space. These people occupy spaces fo r long periods shutting out regular coffee-drinkers and without contributing any conversation or even a hello to the community.

Any development that lures these people away from my Starbucks is OK in my book.

edit : some typos.

There are a handful of coffee shops that actively don't want to be used by laptop/tablet users, and one way they signal that is by not offering wifi. It's not quite as effective a deterrent as it used to be with the advent of cheapish mobile data plans that have tethering, but it can give you an indication of what the shop expects its usage to be. Fins Coffee in Santa Cruz, CA is an example of a shop without wifi.

Given how heavily Starbucks not only offers but advertises its free Wifi (as does McDonald's), my guess is that they do actually intend their stores to attract laptop/tablet users.

Funny you should mention Santa Cruz, as I've also noticed there's a variety of styles of coffee shop in the area.

There's Verve downtown, where low table-density in a big room with a high ceiling creates islands where patrons can isolate themselves from one another. I'm guessing this makes it a place where (mostly young?) people can be productive on their devices.

Then there's a place like Lulu's (right across the street!), that's more cramped and has a more traditional/low-light ambiance, where it's basically impossible to ignore the people around you (I hope I don't make it sound like that's a bad thing).

Yeah, I used to live there, and I think it might be my favorite coffee-shop town. Lots of places and variety, especially considering the modest population. My own favorite one is probably Mr. Toots in Capitola (2nd story, & has a small balcony with ocean view).

For folks who are away from home, or otherwise on the road with a laptop, Starbucks is invaluable. There's a guarantee of transactional access to wifi, even though the quality of the wifi varies by location, and the only risk is finding a seat. I dislike hogging the tables at coffee shops near my house to work, but do so occasionally to help myself think -- but when I'm away from home I find Starbucks a very useful place to go and I'm not always near a local library or other alternative.

Seems funny to blame it on kids when you clearly have a undersupply of coffee shops. Personally, I never feel guilty about using my laptop - if the cofee shop is somewhat full, I just walk five feet to the next one.

I thought that type of place only happened in tv/movies.

I actually miss the "bar" at Tim Horton's, where you could once find conversation without having to bring your own friends with you. You could always retire to the tables if you had a family or group, but the bar was like dropping into the local pub for general socializing (without the slow slide into stupidity). As a young, frequently-moved fellow in the military, it was a great way to find some community outside of the "mob".

The most effective way for coffee shops/cafes to discourage people working for long periods without driving that business away altogether is to not provide any outlets! A cafe I like to work at takes that approach and it seems to do well for them. Most of their customers are there for coffee/food and conversation. I am mostly an anomaly for doing work there.

I think I saw a restaurant owner slashing prices if you just drop your smartphone at the counter before you sit. He was so annoyed of people not 'being' here.

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