Coffee

There is a crucial deficiency in French cuisine. Coffee does not come in decent quantities.


But espresso has more caffeine than coffee.

False, or at best, it depends. You need to consider the strength of the brew and quantity consumed. Typical estimates put one strong brew at over two shots of espresso.

But French coffee is stronger.

At one point in time, this could have been true. However, in general, it is rather easy to find or brew strong coffee in the US. In fact, most coffee connoisseurs are probably used to the strongest of French coffees and call them “mild”.

But espresso is more refined.

You get too much sleep.


There is a bias. A former employer of mine was a coffee shop. One of the owners used to take a large coffee cup, load it with six espresso shots, and top it off with some Columbian – every morning.

It is now difficult to call one shot of espresso “strong”.

But, there is one place for a good, strong, American cup of coffee.

That place is Starbucks.

But going to Starbucks in France feels as traitorous as McDonalds or Disney or the Hard Rock. It’s nice to live in a foreign country with foreign things. Even the “American” places here feel different – they are unique outposts in the frontier. The chains are zebra mussels, attaching to everything, staking a claim, and removing diversity in the ecosystem.

Yet… if I can get a good sized cup of coffee…