Without wishing to take this off on another tangent or annoy anyone with my language (please tolerate any "off" tone, I'm tired)...
my perspective on all this is somewhat different - we can all argue over whether the Costa Rican coffee is fresh or not depending on how it's stored and transported but I'd emphasise that we're still all on the same page regarding the fact it is partly nice because it's identifiably Costa Rican (strikes me as obvious that the sooner you've consumed it after roasting [allowing for de-gassing] the more identifiably Costa Rican it will taste])
The whole premise of Charbucks is that both the environment you're consuming the coffee in and the coffee itself is as identical as they can make it - no matter where you are consuming it in the world.
I'd also disagree with the "self-appointed cognoscenti" label Phil used - if you know something about something why be falsely modest? E.g. talking about "awful drek" - people who discuss anything at a suitably dumbed down level (e.g. TV pundits) are frequently labelled an "expert" and few people quibble, but if you argue that some things are intrinsically better than others and make that judgement based your firsthand experience of patently obvious differences in levels of complexity/freshness etc. - people use pejorative terms like "elitist" (the most commonly used label) or "cognoscenti".
I'm sorry - call me part of the unreconstructed, elitist, self-appointed cognoscenti but:
Charbucks create drinks made from burned beans + 800% milk so that you can't tell if the beans originally came from Mars - so I continually fail to see how they raise coffee consciousness - I think there's a stronger argument to claim they instil a false perception that cows need to do heavy overtime for coffee to be enjoyed and that every single country in the world spontaneously produces coffeeshops with subdued lighting and huge numbers of brown cushions and inanely grining servers that would look too cheerful in Santa's Grotto ...
While I'm in my pulpit .... The willingness to make unequivocal judgements about quality seems to be applied unevenly in our society. Nobody claims Kidderminster Harriers are as good as Manchester United (although when Man Utd go bankrupt they may well be the same
and I do tend to make the argument when I've had one beer too many) so why not make clear judgements about quality when it comes to coffee, its origins, its freshness etc.?
The more complexity you can bring out of Costa Rican beans for your coffee enjoyment the better. If they've been vacuum packed for months they're still likely to be better than bland generic beans that have had the same treatment, *but* obviously, fresh roasted, properly stored and quickly consumed beans are going to be better yet.
And another thing (if we were all in a pub I'd now be jabbing my finger and mumbling by this stage), surely anything that helps bring out what the French call the "terroir" of a product has got to be good - no??? That's not elitist or pretentious - it's simply what makes French/Spanish/Italian culture so much more quality conscious about most edible/drinkable things than any Charbucks/McD's lobotomised Brits/Yanks could ever hope to be ...
anyway - sorry if I've gone off on one - it's been a long tiring day and I won't hear evenly a vaguely good word about Charbucks
Summary of Paul's rant:
anything that encourages regional specialities in coffee/wine/food etc = good
anything to do with Man Utd or Charbucks (both generic deterritorialized global brands) = bad
anyone who defends Man Utd or Charbucks is a bad, bad person
Nighty night!!!!
best,
Paul.
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