I've been drinking at Starbucks for so long, but I've never had a good cup of coffee? Here are some tips for drinking a good cup of coffee

For many people who consider drinking coffee as a fashion, it doesn’t matter whether the coffee they drink is authentic or not. The key is to let people know that you are drinking coffee and be a trendsetter.

But for real coffee powder, if you can't drink authentic coffee in a cafe, it's a naked insult, it's absolutely unbearable...

I remember a Zhihu netizen said something:

At that time, our college only had Starbucks. I couldn’t stand it after drinking there a few times. Later, I only bought 20P of hot water. When I bought it, the clerk and I looked down on each other: "How dare you, a poor bastard, come here to buy only water! Humph~" "You, who can’t even make milk foam, dare to sell coffee to others! Humph~"...

So what kind of coffee is not good coffee? Here are some simple ways to judge:

1. Numb tongue (caused by undercooked beans. There are other reasons, but the numbness of undercooked beans is more obvious).

2. There is a noticeable smoky or burnt smell (failed roasting produces smoky smell, and over-extraction produces burnt smell).

3. Sour and astringent (good coffee has a very smooth fruity acidity, not the strong acetic acid).

4. It tastes very salty (mostly due to baking defects).

5. Like it’s mixed with water (a typical roasting defect, the beans are not roasted enough).

6. Odors such as wood, rubber, Chinese medicine, and rot (caused by poor quality of green beans and improper storage of green beans).

7. It’s as bitter as Chinese medicine (caused by roasting failure. Good coffee is slightly bitter and can be drunk without sugar).

If the coffee you drink does not have the above problems, although we cannot say that it is definitely a high-quality coffee, we can at least be sure that the quality of this cup of coffee is not too bad.

Since coffee is an imported product, the domestic coffee roasting, production and standards are still at the primary school stage. Therefore, whether it is Starbucks or Costa in China, you can often see various incorrect demonstrations by their store clerks.

Therefore, if you want to drink a cup of authentic quality coffee in China, there are two ways: the first is to go to those well-known authentic coffee shops, and the second is to drink the coffee that the coffee shop is best at.

The first method seems to be something you can only encounter by chance. The second method can be learned and applied immediately: the coffee that sells the most is basically the quality that they are best at - because a good cup of coffee has a lot to do with the barista, and the more popular it sells, the more skilled the barista is in brewing this coffee.

For example, among the 16 cities in the figure below, latte ranks first in 15 cities, which means that latte is a hot-selling item in many coffee shops. Although the taste of each coffee shop may be slightly different, the quality of this cup of latte is basically the same.

If you really don't want to remember so much, that's fine, I'll give you two simplest ways:

1. If you go to Starbucks, choose a barista with a black apron . A black apron means that the barista has passed the Starbucks "Specialty Coffee Master" exam and has professional coffee knowledge and excellent coffee brewing skills. The brown apron is said to be the rarest and highest grade apron, so don't expect to see one in a regular Starbucks store.

The one in the middle is wearing a black apron

2. If you are at Costa, look for the barista with a silver coffee bean brooch on his collar (it is called a brooch, but it is usually worn on the collar). If you see someone wearing "two beans" in the store, then congratulations, you have found a Costa-certified coffee master. Ask them to brew coffee for you, and the taste will be right.

Note the coffee bean brooch in the red circle

By the way, a complaint: if there is Costa, don’t go to Starbucks.