Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn • Hacker News Board

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#91

Post by tomatotomato37 » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 2:30 PM UTC

yomly wrote: post #71

mgkimsal wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, even 'coffee' with milk is... the calories of milk. and I like a lot of milk in my coffee. or... I like a bit of coffee with my milk, to be more precise. so i've needed to watch how many I have. can't really deal with plain black coffee.

you should really have a go at persisting with black coffee - it's definitely acquired, but I really can't imagine coffee any other way.

Black coffee is nice... when the actual coffee is nice. It doesn't take too long after the switch to realize the random kuerig selection offered at your office does not fit that category.

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#92

Post by krn » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 2:56 PM UTC

snarf21 wrote: post #69

keiferski wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costa is still dramatically better than Dunkin Donuts, for example.

DD is coffee for people who don't like coffee. Almost everyone gets some kind of heavy sugar and dairy mixed drink. Basically candy coffee.

I wouldn't expect Dunkin Donuts to be any better at coffee than McCafe.

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#93

Post by krn » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 3:08 PM UTC

arnon wrote: post #11

rdl wrote: post #6

I’m kind of surprised post-sales tax nexus Amazon hasn’t bought a coffee chain yet. Starbucks might be too big to do comfortably, but a combination of some higher end local brands (Intelligentsia, Philz, etc) aggregated into some overarching metabrand would be interesting. Let the cafes run everything as they have, with infinite capital available, and focus on providing additional value added services on premise (obv…

I suspect they might end up buying Starbucks

Starbucks would nicely fit with Whole Foods and Landmark Theaters, both already owned by Amazon and targeting American upper-middle class.

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#94

Post by stuartmalcolm » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

meigwilym wrote: post #25

stuartmalcolm wrote: post #2

Am I the only one that is noticing a lot of BBC articles reaching HN frontpage that have nothing to do with tech?

Paul Graham says it's for "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Also "If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic."

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#95

Post by tyu100 » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 3:24 PM UTC

cs02rm0 wrote: post #13

chrisseaton wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Costa does more normal teas and coffees rather than milkshakes or whatever you're referring to.

Costa were in the news for selling a coffee with more calories in it than a double cheeseburger. But then McDonalds, I think, already sell more coffee than anyone else in the UK, so I guess they're converging from both directions.

McDonalds (brewed) coffee always wins the blind taste tests that Canadian newspapers put on between the big chains.

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#96

Post by tyu100 » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 3:25 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #34

AJRF wrote: post #30

Do american coffee chains do things like cappuchino, latte, flat white, etc? Or is it mostly black filter coffee?

US coffee chains have a bewildering range of coffee based drinks, almost to the point where ordering a plain black filter coffee will get you weird looks.

This isn't true in the slightest.

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#97

Post by _delirium » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 3:59 PM UTC

AJRF wrote: post #30

Do american coffee chains do things like cappuchino, latte, flat white, etc? Or is it mostly black filter coffee?

The big US chains are very similar to the big European chains. If anything the big US coffee chains, especially Starbucks, arguably originated the model that the big European chains are following almost as a template. The late-20th-century European chains like Baresso, Costa, Nero, etc. do like to play up an "Italian" influence (hence the vaguely Italian names), but in practice their management strategy was pretty much to clone Starbucks. You can see this in part because their menu range and naming tends to follow the US style rather than the Italian style (e.g. Costa's "macchiato" and "iced cappuccino" are American imports).

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#98

Post by yomly » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 4:00 PM UTC

stephenhuey wrote: post #87

yomly wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you should really have a go at persisting with black coffee - it's definitely acquired, but I really can't imagine coffee any other way.

Yes, I didn’t get into coffee till college and sugary stuff was my gateway, but I knew people enjoyed black coffee and made a concerted effort to develop a taste for it, and now I really can detect subtleties in single origin beans similar to what wine enthusiasts experience. Occasionally I have coffee with milk, especially if it’s bad coffee, but my taste buds thinks of that as something else entirely. Find a coffee…

Yeah, a good pour-over is really something different to a burnt-bitter crap americano (which I will still drink...)

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#99

Post by rexpress » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 4:46 PM UTC

chosenbreed wrote: post #41

Steve44 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have sales figures but a lot of people I know who travel a lot say that, in the UK at least, the McDonalds is pretty good. It's certainly their favourite balance with price and quality, these are proper black coffee drinkers too, not the bucket of sugar & cream types.

Yeah...I think the McDonald's double expresso is great value for money.

McDonald's double espresso poured over a 99p sundae (plain, just ice cream) makes for a decent cut-price affogato.

Re: Coca-Cola to buy Costa coffee for £3.9bn

#100

Post by slumberlust » Fri, Aug 31, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

chewz wrote: post #74

yomly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always struggle with the doublethink that a "coffee" (that is, a black coffee) has nearly 0 calories. But a "coffee" (that is a drink that is really fat and sugar with some coffee added there) could have x calories where x is a stupidly large number...

My friend - concerned that her daughter could put up weight from spending too much time in Starbucks - remarked that Starbucks basicaly serve coffee deserts rather then coffee.

What does this have to do with Starbucks? Any place that serves coffee offers additives that increase calorie count. How is this brand any different? Black coffee is the same calorie count everywhere.