It hardly even needs saying, but white Brits love barista-made coffee (preferably Australian) adorned with elaborate latte art. Willing and able to spend a minimum of £2.50 for a coffee with some warm milk, white Brits are not content with merely drinking their purchase. They need to savour it as if it were a wine degustation, talking about the coffee’s roast, blend, vibrant acidity, floral overtones and sweet aftertaste.
White British “cafficionados” can smell an Ozone or Square Mile roast, well, a mile off. A good way to spot quality cafés is looking at how chummy and pun-tastic the hand-drawn blackboard outside is. However, take note: once a ‘cult coffee shop’ has been recommended by Time Out it’s time to find a new, more hidden one.
Trying to navigate your way through the difference between flat whites and lattes and macs and piccolos can be tricky. But fear not. All those other white Brits are bluffing too.
Not a fan of coffee? No problem. The myriad choices available are designed to make caffeine palatable to even the most inveterate coffee hater: through all the soya milk, vanilla and amaretto syrup, chocolate, sugar and shedloads of creamy froth, you’ll hardly be able to taste any coffee at all. If even that is too strong for you, try a chai latte – no one needs to know it’s not coffee. What really matters is that you can coo at the pretty shapes in the foam.
The apotheosis of white Brits’ undying love for coffee is the pop-up Shoreditch café #guardiancoffee. Initially dismissed as a Twitter joke, it soon turned out to be a real place where white Brits can indulge their two greatest passions at once: reading the Guardian while drinking a double macchiato.
