I have become a very fussy coffee drinker. If there isn’t the correct level of milk versus coffee versus espresso shot, then I am most unhappy with my purchase. I refuse to purchase coffee from the Korean cafes, as it is more or less similar to upending a bowl of sugar into your mouth, while Seattle’s Best Korean division appears to have been on sick leave the day brand awareness was being discussed. Too long to get into this one, but I am of the opinion that most coffee being marketed these days is done so according to branding, not taste. Therefore, people are not just paying for the taste, but also for the name and the “experience” offered by that name”. Seattle’s Best has been struck from my Daegu Coffee Hotspots list. They are now serving their in house and take out coffees in dodgy white paper cups, office style, with what appears to be the corner of a cardboard box around it, supposedly to prevent your pinkies from being exposed to first degree burns. But seeing as the coffee there only ever reaches the startling heights of tepid, they might as well just do away with the cardboard altogether and save another few won. I was most outraged when I ventured in there a few weeks ago for a sit down coffee only to be thrust a white paper cup with luke warm froth and coffee that barely made it to the half way mar. I, of course, threw a suitable strop. So, I have been forced to turn to Starbucks and what a mixed bag of emotions it has proven to be. The two or three outlets downtown are being run by coffee nazis. Every coffee must be made half an hour ago and well and good if the right blend happens to make it to the correct cup, as long as ze queue keepz movin’ jah!! However, my Starbucks in Jisan is perhaps the best coffee shop in the world. The assorted staff are the happiest staff I have ever encountered, always greeting me with a cheery smile and odd pronunciation of “hello”, while doing all they possibly can to make the best coffee they can. I quite like when the new guy gets his quantities all wrong and I end up having to drink the excess before the lid will fit on the cup. I hope he doesn’t receive anymore training as I feel he is making a sterling effort and needs all the encouragement he can get.