Posts by Dismal Soyanz
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Legal Beagle: Coalition of Losers, in reply to Matthew Poole,
Is an UH the best way to enforce serious contemplation/consultation by Parliament? Just seems kind of roundabout way of getting that to me.
I was in Oz when there was a threat of a double dissolution. Wish I had taken more interest in the why's and wherefore's at the time but from memory it didn't strike me as being a terribly good way to run government nor that such a situation (double dissolution) would logically happen only once in a blue moon.
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Hard News: Because it's about time we…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Which reminded me of this.
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Hard News: Because it's about time we…, in reply to mobsta,
Apparently Coffee Supreme in Woodward St has a Clover machine.
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Hard News: Because it's about time we…, in reply to Simon Grigg,
I don’t think the countless coffee carts of Yogyakarta, Ipoh and Vientiane arrived in response to Starbucks. Nor the coffee houses of Jakarta and the Yum Char traditions of Guangdong.
Of course not and that is apropos of what?
OK - if you really want to be pedantic about it: "It was hard to find decent espresso style coffee in Asia."
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Hard News: Because it's about time we…, in reply to Simon Grigg,
Well that does get esoteric. I spent a long enough time in Asia to get to appreciate the various local versions of coffee and tea. Some very nice, some gaggingly awful. If you were growing up as an urban kid in the major metropolitan cities of Asia in the 1990s, I'm pretty sure you would have thought Starbucks was nice.
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Hard News: Because it's about time we…, in reply to Simon Grigg,
Sorry Simon - I don't see which part of that isn't fair.
They (and their subsequent clones) did not compete on the basis of the quality of their coffee.
Start a cafe if you wish but it will have little to do with selling coffee to most people born in Asia.
From what I have seen of the cafes in Asia, 99% of their customers are Asian.
You go elsewhere for a coffee hit.
Obviously we have different experiences. I found it notoriously difficult to find a decent coffee in several Asian cities. Maybe now there are decent alternatives but when Starbucks first went into Asia there were none.
I admit a lot of people go to Starbucks in Asia not for the real coffee but for things like the iced coffee (really just coffee flavoured milkshake) and the "fluffies" - but that's also because these are places for kids to meet that are air-conditioned. The real fluffy fans used to go to the bubble tea outlets.
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Hard News: Because it's about time we…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Which amusingly is really the McD method - consistent if unspectacular quality.
Too bad Starbucks didn't get the memo about quality.
@Mobsta - For the sake of comparison, what's the going price for a HK Starbucks regular coffee these days?
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From the original article:
A reason New Zealand has never embraced Starbucks is that we are a nation of shameless coffee snobs.
Snobs? For not wanting to get a coffee from a chain that looks (and arguably) tastes corporately-bland? Ok - I'm a snob then.
My first experience with Starbucks was in Asia. At that time, there was no such thing as a decent coffee [local variations which were very different aside]. It was, quite literally, Starbucks or nothing. Then we got other chain stores such as Gloria Jeans, Coffee Club and Tea Leaf and (Coffee) Bean. I tried them all and to be honest, found it very hard to differentiate between them. Same taste, same decor (practically), just different addresses. It became a habit, popping downstairs to the nearest Starbucks before getting stuck into work.
Eventually I went back to Oz and after having my first coffee in Sydney, I vowed to never set foot in a Starbucks again.
In other words, Starbucks stores are a little too close to our humdrum, middle class lives.
I guess if you see the coffee equivalent of MacD's as middle class then, yes.
But here's a newsflash: the Seattle-based Starbucks doesn't give a white chocolate mocha about New Zealand's coffeehouse snobbery. It wants the big markets: the Americas, Western Europe, and the mother of all growth opportunities, Asia.
Americas - done. W. Europe - Good luck with that.
Until recently, Starbucks in Asia were cruising on a lack of real competition. I hear anecdotal evidence of people who have lived in places like Oz and NZ going back to Asia and starting cafes. Unfortunately, I don't hold out much expectation for them to compete well against the likes of Starbucks. One of the things that strike me about the cafes down under is their "kick backed-ness" - not something that seems to gel with life in Asia (or at least in the CBDs). I could be wrong. Maybe they will stick it to the Mona Lisa. Here's hoping.
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Legal Beagle: Coalition of Losers, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
but I see democracy and their pre-election policies and mandate as at least morally limiting this.
Politicians with moral limits? Such a quaint idea...
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Legal Beagle: Coalition of Losers, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
the Greens have tended to be less offensive to the middle ground
That may need to be taken with a fair pinch of salt. Didn't the Greens feature prominently in a number of policy announcements that were seen as being a tad too "I know better than you" - a big reason why Labour lost crucial support from the middle ground in 2008?