Interesting views from Tony Turnbull in the Times Magazine (25 Feb 08) on our coffee habits:
Don't you think it's one of the great myths of our time that we British bave become a nation of coffee aficionados? Yes our high streets may be blanketed by a competing froth of Starbucks and Costas and Caffe Neros, but can we really claim to be true lovers of the brew itself? ...Why else would the decaf whipped caramel latte exist? Why would you flood a single shot of espresso with half a pint of milk and laughably call it a latte? These aren't coffees, they're milkshakes. We haven't come on that far from the milkbars of the fifties.
Makes me wonder about my coffee preferences. I still have regular coffee most of the time, with 10% or so added milk, but given my favourite is a glass of mocha, I appear to have picked up the taste for hot milkshakes like the rest of us ...