Can we talk about Costa?

[Twitteratti]

I just don't understand why it appears to be so successful. Is it because in too many places there just aren't enough decent alternatives?

Someone on Coco Cola's board obviously thinks it serves decent coffee

Oh...and for a chain...they’re MASSIVELY inconsistent. Some make FAR more awful coffee than others. One has the BEST location by far, but the coffee is completely rank. Consistently. It’s weird.

Costa's coffee is massively better than Starbucks, which is nasty.

Their cakes are better too - though their habit of putting the calories in each piece has worked magically to deter me from ever having any again, hurrah! (Have you seen the calories in one of their not-all-that-big slices of carrot cake?)

I go to my local Costa as opposed to the independents because:
Independents are in a gritty part of town.
I prefer the coffee at Costa.
Better choice of cakes/sandwiches I like.
Comfier seats and always spotlessly clean.
Plus, the staff at my local Costa are great, very friendly, happy and chatty as opposed to the sullen teens who tend to work in the local independent ones round here.

Plus, I like my coffee madd with skimmed milk and most small coffee shops don’t have it.

Their coffee is overpriced and not very good. They have pushed out most of the independents in a (tourist) town near us - there were 3 or 4 excellent local coffee shops, reasonably priced, good cakes, nice staff, but Costa took over a large shop right in the centre of the high street. Locals still use the independents (or at least the 2 that are left) but tourists (and teenage girls!) seem to flock to the Costa.

It is part of the homogenisation of our society - soon there will be no independent coffee shops, no small hotels, B&Bs etc because Premier Inn and Travelodge will have put them out of business.

These big companies can weather the storm of high business rates, have huge advertising budgets and are winning the war of attrition. It makes me very sad.

I rarely go in Costa because their coffee is awful (their iced chocolate though is nice). Starbucks coffee is even worse - absolutely vile tasting.

I have tried a few Starbucks to see if the coffee is as awful in others and it is.

I always try and use independents or Pret. Debenhams coffee is pretty ok and McDonalds is actually pretty decent too - much better than costs or Starbucks

I quite like them too. Not the best coffee but not the worst. Drinkable.

One thing is for sure, they'll be shit after a few months of Coca Cola ownership.

I'm a fan of Costa though I don't drink coffee. More than one has been happy to let me have a free table for a few hours to promote a charity. And they usually have a local community noticeboard which is a nice touch. The staff are always pleasant, efficient but not hassle you hurried, which can't be said for all chains.

I drink the tea which is fine or the mango cooler.

Niche independent coffee shops are fine in principle and people can rave about their particular local one but some just aren't all that, they have all the wanky decor and a million single-sourced beans but can be outrageously expensive and honestly they're not always that flipping good at actually brewing coffee consistently.

Costa's you know what you're getting, it might not be a high end brew of rare beans from a misty hidden mountain Utopia, where the plants were watered with unicorn pee and the crop harvested by Virgins but it's a consistently acceptable cup of coffee when out and about. I drink it when in the UK (definitely in preference to Starbucks) and don't fancy being patronized by some snooty barista in a swanky cafe because I don't understand the menu or what all the choices are.

We had two small independents and a Costa in our nearest town.
One independent had a few small tables with hard chairs, and a collection of signs on the front door declaring that they didn't take cards or cheques and no Scottish money please. Even though it was in Hertfordshire (?)
The other closed at 3.30 even though it was officially open until 4. Any individual who crossed the threshold at 3.35 was repelled with a stare from the cleaner.
Not surprisingly we used Costa for after school drinks.
The second independent has now closed.

It is part of the homogenisation of our society - soon there will be no independent coffee shops, no small hotels, B&Bs etc because Premier Inn and Travelodge will have put them out of business

But they have to be willing to be competitive. Our Town Council suggested the independents worked as a small “chain” with each doing a longer day once a week to cover the commuters. Not one was willing to even trial it.

Our Costa makes enough in the before and after work period to not need to worry about being quiet during the day. There’s no business sense in not tapping into captive markets

I've never bought coffee from Costa but their hot chocolate and panini's are delicious.

Their ice tea lemonade and coolers are lovely. I also like their children's snack boxes

This discussion is clearly divided on whether you are a bit of a coffee snob or not . Strong coffee gives me heart palpitations and although I like it, I find I can only drink a weak milky latte or similar. I find most independents just can't accept/understand this and insist on serving me something too strong. I'm just sick of getting the sneering looks and raised eyebrow when I ask for extra hot water or for them to empty half of it out and top up.
For me the coffee therefore isn't the main event, and things like space/ available seating/free wifi/little shortbread biscuits make me prefer Costa.

I do not like their chocolate twist thingies either; who puts lemon like curd paste stuff in a chocolate pastry?. They do so never again.

It's a special kind of custard, for pastries

I agree with others, the coffee is only as good as the barista who makes it. I was very faithful to Costa at one time in my life, but I hate it when you get a slapdash maker of coffee which does happen. My worst cup of coffee would be one with masses of froth, I prefer a flat white type of affair, from my observations, the banging of the jug of milk down several times and swilling the coffee round the cup seemed to be an integral part of getting the coffee just right. These days since the advent of pod machines I have more coffee at home. I tend to look for a good independent rather than a Costa, but I would prefer them to either Cafe Nero or Starbucks.

But they have to be willing to be competitive. Our Town Council suggested the independents worked as a small “chain” with each doing a longer day once a week to cover the commuters. Not one was willing to even trial it.

That's crazy. How do they expect to catch a share of the market? Madness.

Coffee is most definitely not coffee wherever you go!?!
Out of all the chain coffee shops the taste of Costa coffee has to be one of the worst! Watery coffee no matter what type of drink you ask for!!

But yes I totally agree they succeed due to overkilling every town with at least one coffee shop, a coffee machine type thing in local petrol Stn etc!

I want to like my local (quite large & very busy) Costa because they serve the perfect skinny medium iced latte no syrup - but there are issues...

The staff at that particular Costa don't seem well managed & there is one member of staff who seems to have a bad attitude to other staff which makes them miserable.

The service is extremely slow & the place was half empty when I last went in yet every single free table had mess & dirty cups round it - both on the surfaces & on the floor.

My pet hate is when cafes don't clean the floor! Actually my local M&S cafe is worst for this.

My local Starbucks & cafe Nero are both friendlier & cleaner. There are also some good indie cafes.

Maybe I go out for coffee too much!!

I would kill for a Costa in my town. I have 2 take away coffee options: Greggs (which is surprisingly good I find) and a greasy spoon type place that will charge you £1.50 for a cup of Nescafé instant served in a white polystyrene cup with a lid you need to take off to drink from.

The nearest costa to me is 20 miles away and I find the coffee there is on par with the local indie place. However the local indie place has hispster food, so instead of a chicken fajita wrap you can have a croissant with halloumi and sundries tomatoes. Which isn’t necessarily bad but not what my 4 year old was hoping for!

No costa nearby did help save me a fortune during the recent heatwave, in that kind of heat I crave an iced latte and Greggs haven’t started selling them yet!

Ribbon, you may find Costa coffee consistently acceptable but I don't. I find it consistently unacceptable.

Wonderwine, I don't consider myself a coffee snob but I like decent coffee. I don't like milk so hate milky coffee and don't get be started on lattes which are just hot milk with the tiniest bit of coffee in.

I like my coffee pretty strong but not bitter (like Starbucks) or with that stale taste.

If I wanted shit coffee I would just drink instant.

Also I don't get how places like Starbucks charge so much for such awful coffee and are almost always full - there are 3 in my local town plus 3 Costas. It's practically impossible a lot of the time to get a table in one

Best & strongest & cheapest coffee I had was at a local Portuguese cafe.

Costa coffee is rank. They put far too much milk in it (flat white) or their black coffee comes out in a huge soup bowl. Awful.

Their cups are bigger. My local independent does beautiful coffee but it's the same price as Costa for a much smaller cup.

I like costa coffee, much nicer than Starbucks and less bitter than neros. I agree it dies well partly because of the decent opening hours and on the whole, you know what you're going to get.

A local indie closed down after costa joined the high street and no doubt the owners blame costa for their demise. But the fact was, costa had better coffee at a better price, a nicer seating area and you didn't have to wait forever to be served. One of the big pluses of costa over an independent is the choice of types of milk, types of coffee and sizes of drinks. The independent only had one size of cup and only full fat milk so it wasn't worth going in there for coffee.