cam, 267 words, 0 comments, Hawaii, Green Flash Coffee, Coffee, Kona Coffee, Photography

Our favourite coffee shop on the big island was the Green Flash. It had good coffee, good food and excellent service. The only places in Hawaii where we got good service was in the coffee houses; the restaurants and bars were atrocious. You were left dangling often for twenty minutes at a time.

To get to the Green Flash we would often run four miles down Ali'i Drive to the coffee shop from where we were staying and then grab coffee or a protein smoothie - or both. We got asked if we were here for the ironman contest as apparently the competitors start filing in around now for the race around the island. While I am in good shape for my age, sadly I am not that fit.

On the run back there were a couple of small big island style beaches with small sand spits and very, very mild waves. We would stop at one of the beaches about the two and a half mile mark and then go for swim in the surf for a while. It was a relaxing way to break up the run.

The local delicacy is Kona coffee grown on the hills in the south of the island. It goes for a premium. I am a daily coffee drinker but my palette was not good enough to pick up the differences in the taste between house coffee and Kona.

Anyway props to the Green Flash for being an excellent coffee house especially as most Hawaiian restaurants, bars and service is quite ordinary to the point of disappointment.

cam, 636 words, 6 comments, Starbucks, Coffee, Avocadia, Practicality, John Quiggin, Tim Dunlop

Starbucks is contracting operations in Australia after closing 600+ stores in the US. Personally I like Starbucks coffee and get a medium sized regular black coffee every morning on the way to work. There are two nearby though not as close to the normal joke about Starbucks where they set up shop opposite each other. Though when I lived in North Scottsdale there was a Starbucks in the mall, and another Starbucks stand in the grocery store a mere 90 metres away.

Via Angela on flickr

Starbucks has managed to make themselves 'cool' in the United States and the self-proclaimed barista's seem to take delight in remembering your order from day to day. Consequently it makes it a pleasant consumer experience. As much as I love a long black [Americano in the US] while taking in the environment of Lygon Street, I enjoy a Starbucks coffee on the way to work too.

From others around the Australian blogosphere, Avocadia doesn't mind the odd Starbucks espresso;

I appreciated Starbucks when we were in the US earlier this year because while it was sub-par espresso-based coffee, at least it was espresso-based coffee. ... Why then will I miss Starbucks? Because where I live - Ingleburn - I'm basically in the same position. There's not a great deal of demand for quality espresso in Ingleburn; you can't mix it with Wild Turkey, you see.

Pracs doesn't mind the convenience of Starbucks from when he was in Los Angeles:

Actually, I have to say I didn't mind Starbucks though. A nice big mug of filtered coffee outside while you watched the world go by wasn't a bad way to have a break.

John Quiggin is dismissive though he notes the competitive advantage Gloria Jeans got from organising as a franchise:

A letter in the Fin Review makes the point that Starbucks suffered in competition with Gloria Jeans (for non-Oz readers, a truly horrible food court coffee chain, closely associated with one of our less appealing churches), because GJ is a franchise operation, with most franchisees being small enough to avoid payroll tax, while Starbucks were company-owned and had to pay.

While Tim Dunlop dislikes Starbucks coffee from news of the US contractions of stores:

As much as I loved living in the US, the coffee was (generally) dreadful and Starbucks was a major contributor to that state of affairs. I don't know why it was, though I think the tendency to make the drinks just too big was probably part of the problem. Never underestimate how good Australian coffee is and note how Starbucks has never really taken off here

Gary Sauer-Thompson believes it is a failure of globalisation to take into account regionalist tastes:

Starbucks, maybe an icon of globalization, but it is the downside of globalization in that it failed to adjust to the local culture of European style coffee houses with good coffee. It just dumped what worked in America into Australia and so failed to adjust to the local Australian culture of European style coffee houses with good coffee. They took the ideas from Italian cafes and implemented them in America. But, as we already had Italian style cafes in Australia, Starbucks offered little in the way of innovation.

Starbucks has obviously hit a market and helped propel coffee into a mass store phenomenon. American love of coffee stems back to Civil War times when it was part of a soldiers ration, and desperate soldiers, unable to light campfires to boil water, would eat the beans directly. Starbucks suits the highway and car culture of the US exceptionally well. It was hard to see how they could maintain expansion given that their product is largely a luxury item - $5.00 USD for a coffee is excessive.

cam, 130 words, 0 comments, Fair Trade, Anecdote, Coffee

I meant to write this anecdote in the previous article but got side tracked by exploring Australian Republicanism. Anyway, the local shopping center in Virginia went upmarket a couple of years ago to match changing demographics. One of their changes was to sell fair trade ground coffee alongside Starbucks, Peets and Seattle's Best.

I bought it for my wife as I correctly deduced she would be interested in it. It was only marginally more expensive, and the kicker was; it tasted better. The fair trade coffee was only on the shelves for a few weeks, not sure why, I didn't inquire, but I went back to buying Starbucks ground coffee. If it was still on the shelves I would be buying it as it was a high quality product.