Thank you, finally someone is trying to bring some sense into what Frezik meant by “American coffe culture”. To me that’s still a pretty niche thing and not “everywhere” as they claimed, but at least I can acknowledge that it exists.

Yet I’m still not sure how much of that development is based in the US. We have had small rosters in my hometown all the time and not only Tchibo, but I guess the numbers might have gone up again lately and maybe the US could even have played a part in that trend.

Just as with Craft Beer, it’s not something the USA invented. We’ve had crafted beer in Germany all the time, and every little town had it’s own local brewery. We just didn’t call it “Craft Beer” it was simply “beer”. However, the general trend was going towards industrialized big brand beers and away from the old fashioned Dorfbrauerei in the late 20th century, with a lot of smaller breweries closing down. The US Craft Beer szene might have helped turning that trend around and giving small breweries a new fancy name for their old product to bring it back into the supermarkets.

My local butcher is closing after more than a century, my local bakery was replaced by a local chain a few years ago. Maybe the US can start a Craft Butchering and a Craft Bread trend next, so I don’t have to drive 2km to the next local bakery.

Who’s design again?

The Melitta machine cost 120 DM in 1965 which is ~270€ today, the Mr Coffee cost 40$ in 1972, which is ~270€ today. It wasn’t even cheaper, just later.

If you don’t want that, just don’t order “Kaffee”. Every half decent bakery sells Espresso or Café Crèma, you just have to ask for it.

Same vibe:

People who go on beach vacation for a week, what are you doing there? I can undress, have a swim, get sand into my crotch and a sunburn on my shoulder in less than an hour. WHAT ARE YOU DOING

Mr Coffee was not extremely cheap outside of America, it doesn’t even exist outside of America because the problem it solves was already solved by other companies outside of America.

I understand that it might have been a great improvement for the American coffee drinkers (I don’t know, I’ve never heard of Mr Coffee until yesterday because I’m not American), but it did nothing to influence “coffee culture everywhere else” as the OP boldly claims, because everywhere else is outside of America!

That’s still an America only thing. Baristas in Italy had their own little shops long before Starbucks existed, they knew how to make good coffee all along, they didn’t need American Corporations to tell them how to barista.

I mean, Americans also believe they invented pizza, cars or putting meat into a breadroll.

Instead of assuring me, maybe you could enlighten us by telling us what the fuck it is, you’re talking about. Because the American

modern coffee culture that exists everywhere else now

does not exist in Europe. At least not outside of Starbucks or maybe McDonalds. The Italians still drink the same espresso from Lavazza or illy as they always did, the German still buy their filter coffee from Jacobs and Tchibo, just like in the 1960s.

Oh, and btw. Mr Coffee was not an improvement, it was a copy of a device invented in Germany 20 years before, perfected by the Danish company EVA. Mr Coffee is unknown outside of North America because these devices already existed in the rest of the world.

Copying stuff from somewhere else is not a problem. China does it all the time and it’s fine. The problem with the Yanks is, that after copying stuff, they make it worse and afterwards claim they’ve invented it.

I just read about the “second wave” for the first time, and allegedly it was Starbucks’ idea to “transform coffee consumption into a social event instead of just consumption of coffee”.

But I can guarantee you, that that’s a purely American view, as coffee consumption has been a social event long before in the rest of the world. Fika in Sweden was a thing since the 19th century. Sospreso has been a thing in Italy a century before Starbucks copied it. I don’t know since when Kaffe und Kuchen is a thing in Germany, but my Gradma told me how her Grandma used to put out the white table cloth only for the Sunday Koffee. And she was long dead when Starbucks got their Idea of serving pastries with coffee. Austria got their first Kaffeehaus a century before the USA even existed. In Mecca, coffee houses were banned from 1512-1524 as they were too sociable for the imams who feard the politicization of the coffee drinkers.

And don’t get me started on the “third wave”, a marketing term coined by some hipsters in Los Angeles or New York to sell overpriced “specialty” coffee to other hipsters from San Francisco or Boston.

Lol whut? Espresso, Cappuccino and Latte macchiato are Italian,
Drip filter coffee was invented in Germany as well as decaf Cold brew is Duch/Japanese Boiled Coffee is from the Middle East/North Africa Irish Coffee is from Ireland, but similar drinks are known with different names and different spirits at leas in France and Germany. The French Press is from France, first patented by an Italian
Instant Coffee from New Zealand Frappé is from Greece Iced coffee is from Algeria

You Americans might have invented abominations like Starbucks, but that’s not coffee culture worldwide. Noone I know drinks that stuff. There are somewhere around 100,000 and coffee bars in Italy alone, 31 of which are Starbucks built for American tourists. (Maybe it’s 35 by now). There are 10 times more traditional Cafés in Berlin alone, than Starbucks in all of Germany.

I totally agree with you, especially in the second part where you’re talking about the US being a weird ass country full of wackjobs.

But that doesn’t mean that we in the other countries aren’t a bunch of wackjobs either. We might not be as totally wack as you are right now, but that’s just a matter of past or future. Just so you know: We already found the worst possible solution, so you don’t have to find it for yourself, you can learn from us and choose another path.

There are hop-soup tastings. Not the same as tomato soup, bit still better than wine if you ask me.

If you’re really concerned about leaking your email address, I’d suggest using an anonymous mail service like https://anonbox.net/. Just create an one-time address for registration and don’t forget your password ;⁠). That way you don’t need to trust the admins nor their server security.

My email provider also has a service where they give you a throwaway email address that’s only valid for a month. Maybe yours does the same?

While I’m quite happy that shops in Germany are closed on Sundays, I’m also quite happy that electricity companies, hospitals and other critical infrastructures are not closed on Sundays.

So yeah, I don’t see the issue here either.

Also, why would you make it up? We do literally have photos from these things being in active use in our history books. Here is an example from my hometown although it’s not the exact same model obviously.

Horses, dogs and other animals that can “calculate” don’t even need to be lucky, let alone calculate. They’re used to work with humans, so they’ll notice subtle clues in their owners behaviour. They just stomp or bark or whatever until the human subconsciously changes his facial expression from excited to satisfied or whatever.

But do you know why horses can’t draw?

Because they have no thumbs to hold the pencil.

Could y’all please stop dieing on hills all the time?! I love hiking, but all the corpses are really disturbing.

Could y’all please stop dieing on hills all the time?! I love hiking, but all the corpses are really disturbing.