Travel Coffee 5: Familiar coffee in Poland

I'm a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to travelling. Part of me loves the adventure of going to a new culture and trying new foods and drinks, and then part of me loves - needs - my home comforts or routines.

So finding myself in Warsaw for one weekend the question I was going out for breakfast. There was a Starbucks near the hotel...but this was a city, so surely there would be alternatives (skipping the hotel itself as overpriced)?

Well, I don't like compromising on my quality and love the idea of certain things being consistent across the world. And the fact that I start around 50% of my days at home with a Starbucks filter coffee means that I really wanted to see how a filter would be in Poland.

I have previously found that they are pretty consistent, likely because of the same beans (and roasting methods?) being used. In fact, walking into the shop was like walking into any identical shop back home (well-seasoned travellers are groaning a bit here at my lack of adventure). I was initially dismayed at the lack of a filter coffee option and was ready to go down the americano route, when I spotted that they do have a filter option - then saw the machine behind the counter.

So I ordered a large filter and they told me it would take around 5 minutes to make, which was no surprise to me as this is often true in the UK when they run out. But in fact I was mistaken; they hadn't run out, but they didn't have the machine on at all (and possibly didn't expect to). It was a Sunday morning in a Roman Catholic country, which means that the city centre is pretty deserted. And perhaps filter coffee isn't that popular in Poland (it took me a while to convince myself to try it in the UK).

To add to my suspicion that it wouldn't be a particularly popular order, they didn't switch it on, but got out a cup-top filter and proceeded to make me a filter coffee the old fashioned way, right down to grinding the beans (in a machine, not by hand. It wasn't that old-fashioned).

It really did take 5 minutes, and I was reminded of some of the upmarket, hipster coffee places in London that I'd visited with their filters optimised for fluid flow. I was looking forward to it, even as my egg bagel got cold in my hand.

Well, it came out dark and rich (to be honest, though I don't often look at my coffee, and not in a white mug). But it looked really dark, and it was. My suspicion is that they used too much ground coffee in the filter; though it was certainly drinkable, and good-tasting, it was a bit richer than I was used to. And a bit stronger, which for a large made me worry about my jitteriness on the plane I was about to go and get.

So the moral is, I guess, that even though the beans, the machinery and the environs may be similar, the culture can play a big part even when you're looking for an identical experience.