Monday, July 17, 2006

Savoir boire?

L’Express harbors elitism and condescension not just for America, but anyone around that they consider hapless oafs.

« The French planted Robusta [coffee variety] in their former colonies and developed a taste for the worst coffee in the world. “To give them arabica is like offering foie gras with the people accustomed to liverwurst”, sighs Abdurahman Mahdi. This Paris based trader of Ethiopian extraction acts as a middleman for his brother who is an exporter in Addis-Ababa noted that our conversion to a taste for better things is slow to come. »
L’Express goes on to trash Starbucks, of course, even if it is converting people to develop a tase for better things like better quality coffee, a polite, comfortable, smoke-free environment to enjoy it in, and wi-fi for les internauts. Odd that they’d neglect to mention that Arabica too is considered crap pedestrian by those who have a developed taste for coffee, and prefer to save their Kona for good friends and special occasions. In short, that double espress at €1,80 or so that people fawn over is actually nicely dressed up transmission fluid to go with that clope.

It seems that now that the British are rediscovering really good tea, the neighbors will find themselves learning all about coffee all over again.

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