Tad extreme there Paul.
My comments on parochialism were only partly tongue in cheek. I've personal experience whereby local produce is considered the best and even only option, to the detriment of all other, which is both prejudicial and naïve. I experience this kind of attitude all the time, people who have been brainwashed into thinking, for example, that there is no such thing as English cheese other than the (plastic) "cheddar" served with hamburgers, that English bread is no more than "pain de mie" (awful stuff) and that cider is only made in Normandie!!! Your support of only locally produced items, taken to its logical extreme, would mean that none of us should be drinking coffee at all (unless steve's plants all of a sudden have a bumper crop!). My choice of the term parochialism was not made lightly, but rather to express the ignorance I am used to seeing.
One of the things I like about london (and there aren't many) is its multi-culturalism, whilst in many cases the experience is maybe not as authentic as it could be, it's a darn sight better than the alternatives (there's a comparison here to be made between Cafe B and generic supermarket coffees). I'm not saying we should necessarily accept inferior imitations, there's all kind of produce I won't buy here in the UK simply because I know it's not as good (poor imitation) as that which I can buy at home in France, however, not everybody has the same opportunities; despite the fact I can probably get good jellied eels locally, you'll excuse me if I prefer to have "sushi" instead, even though I am aware it is unlikely to be as good as I might have in Japan.
I'm sure that Cafe Britt tastes even better when drunk freshly roasted in Heredia (would anyone here argue otherwise?), sadly, I'm busy for the next couple of weeks, so that ain't gonna happen
I very much appreciate your arguments on consumerism, Paul, and agree that many products are diluted down for the lowest common denominator and become both homogenous and formulaic (precisely what my own research is against). But that said, I'm very much in favour of broadening my experiences and looking beyond that which is available locally as well (thankfully as local produce is going to be hard to come by in London)!
As SimonP says, it's all about education and my interpretation and usage of parochialism is the antithesis of this; an almost conscious desire
not to be educated!
Being a deeply pessimistic/miserable person by nature, my relatively recent involvement in gourmet coffee is quite depressing.
Cheer up mate (term's almost over!) you are probably drinking better coffee now than you ever were before... that's got to be positive! Your shot glass is definitely half full (ristretto) rather than half empty
D
Ps. Not sure how you consider more than 80% of a "local" team being foreign nationals a positive argument for parochialism! The only thing that concerns me was that it was a good match!