And he still wouldn’t have cycled to Starbucks 🤢

Most of the time I just get a standard coffee and they taste the same between all cafes and coffee shops, and with standard drinks Starbucks is cheaper than Nero, but at custamizing drinks level price doesn’t matter

Is it a genetic thing?

Probably more of a cultural one. Like how even Americans with Scandinavian ancestry consider black liquorice taste bud poison but us Scandinavians IN Scandinavia generally can’t get enough of it 😁

i’m from melbourne, australia which is one of the best places in the world for coffee… when i go to the US i try to find good coffee but our version of good tends to be VERY different

US good is a dark roast - which i find very bitter… australian coffee (and melbourne in particular) is quite a light roast, which is more acidic but less bitter

i find most good coffee in the US to be pretty undrinkable (this probably comes down to choice of preparations: black drip is pretty weak; espresso starts out strong), but a starbucks blonde is… inoffensive (note with relation to your comment: a light roast is probably what you’re talking about; especially a light double ristretto… a ristretto is a half shot, twice… the bitterness from coffee comes at the end of the shot, so nero is perhaps a light roast double ristretto… you also tend to get most of the caffeine in the first half i think? so it’s more caffeine if that worries you)

so when i’m in a rush and really just want to not hate what im putting in me, ill find a starbucks not because its good, but because its fucking hard work to find a good coffee that’s also my taste - my usual cues for a cafe just don’t work in the US, and there’s no a fantastic cafe on literally every corner so the choice is even harder