Australian Coffee the Best in the World
A very interesting article has appeared at news.com.au praising Australians and they’re taste for coffee as well as they’re coffee growing talent.
An interesting fact about Ian MacLaughlin, a coffee grower from Cairns: he drinks 20 cups of coffee a day!
Now that is impressive.
February 25th, 2007 at 8:27 am
I have just returned from a four month sojourn through Europe and the UK. I can now say, with the greatest confidence, that Australia has the best and most consistant standard of coffee (even, dare I say it, the ‘Instant’ varieties). The ONLY exception to this would be Italy. Italian café owners are often rude and will rip you off without batting an eyelid (never sit at a table - always stand at the counter to drink), but the coffee is sublime. The Brits would easily have to be the worst for a good cup of java. Do they really hate coffee that much? Every cup I brought to my lips tasted burnt, watery and often nothing like coffee at all - their teas were a saving grace though. The french weren’t much better with overpriced cups of nuclear waste hidden beneath a mountain of foam. Yurrrgh! This theme continued throughout western Europe until I hit Florence, when suddenly, the prices dropped and the standard soared. Bliss! If it wasn’t for the ten million italian drivers trying to kill me on the streets of Rome, I could easily move there for the coffee alone. Unfortunately, once I crossed the Alps into Austria, the coffee world turned pear-shaped again. Austria may be famous for it’s coffee houses but it would have to be only be for the cake as the bitter, flavourless coffee is obviously what catalysed the rise of the Third Reich. Achtung! We pretty much gave up on finding a good cup after Berlin until we made our way down to Sofia, Bulgaria. In a dingy street off the main square, I managed to find an inviting little café with a rather pleasant aroma wafting from within. Gold! Just when I thought the world had mad, a fat little Bulgarian lady renewed my zest for caffeine. Thank you Svetlana (not her real name). The last stop on my itinerary was Istanbul where you can actually get a decent cup of coffee, but you’ll have to go looking for it. The best I found was located in the middle of the Grand Bazaar (the name escapes me). Whilst technically still on the European continent, the culture is far enough removed to not be included in my original statement above regarding the poor quality of European coffee. Cheers.