Home » India » Bean there, done that

The Indian Coffee House chain in India

Bean there, done that

ColinT
2006-05-13 17:04:05

Displayed times (last time: )

I love coffee. I have drunk it all over the world, from England to Austria and from Canada to India. I drink it wherever and whenever I can. But I rarely drink coffee in cafיs or restaurants in the UK. I refuse to go to one of the trendy high street coffee bars that have sprung up during the past decade and pay the equivalent of at least Rs 160 for a small cup. They serve coffee from all over the world and the aromas are beautiful, but the catch is that the customer pays through the nose. A second catch is that you are sitting in a place designed by consumer analysts, where the dיcor is very carefully (some would say, cynically) selected to entice, manipulate and make you part with your hard-earned cash.

The big coffeehouse chains are beginning to dominate the world. They are loved by those who want an expensive cup of coffee in the morning, and hated by anti-globalisers and those who despise the homogenisation of cafי culture. All is not yet lost, though, as traditional coffee houses still thrive and offer a better experience. In places such as Austria they have existed for decades as a part of the fabric of a town or city.

And the coffee blows your head off! I recall visiting a coffee house in Vienna and was given a thimble-like container of black coffee. Although I was highly disappointed with the quantity, after one sip I realised that this was no ordinary coffee. It was the super-concentrated type, of rocket-fuel strength. Decent, if rather strong, coffee served in a coffeehouse that had been part and parcel of the local community for generations.

The Kaffeehהuser of Vienna have more in common with Parisian literary cafיs or English pubs than they do with modern espresso bars that serve lattי in paper cups. Both are from different worlds. And then, from quite another place entirely, there are McDonalds, Burger King and all those fast food joints that serve coffee by the bucket (or should that be ...