quote:

Originally posted by nembrionic

I also have to agree on the coffee. I’ve spent quite some time at your side of the big pond and the coffee tastes even a bit sour at time.
Moreover, it’s watery and lacks a certain ‘kick’ to it.

A bit of ground coffee, a lot of water. Very cheap to make.
It doens’t surprise me AT ALL that you guys have the free refill thing going on. You will rarely, if at all, encounter an establishment over here where you get refills on your coffee.

I don’t understand the knock on coffee in the US. I think that’s a throwback to a time when coffee here meant that stuff out of a can from the supermarket. I suppose some restaurants (sadly, lots of Roadfood places) still serve that, but the available variety of coffee around the US these days is so tremendous you can’t really say it’s ALL good or ALL bad. For one thing, espresso machines and so-called French presses are no longer novelties and the old-fashioned percolator is nearly as anachronistic as the supermarket can. Then there’s the fact that we don’t just throw the world’s reserve currency around to get oil–we also suck up much of the world’s best coffee beans and we don’t ruin them all. So at least in major US cities, if you want great coffee you shouldn’t have any trouble getting it and if you want it elsewhere you should be able to get good beans (even if you have to order them on the internet) and make it yourself. You certainly don’t have to go to Europe. And, as it happens, my personal favorite coffee anywhere is ALL-American: Kona from Hawaii.

I will agree that as a rule the butter in Europe (and in countries with both a European tradition and large dairy herds like New Zealand) is really superior, but you can even buy imported butters fairly easily in US cities now and the artisanal cheese phenomenon has begun to expand to artisanal butters.

But remember: MAPLE SYRUP is a North American thing. And it makes up for a lot of bad coffee and mediocre butter.