Clone Town Britain's coffee chains

By Alex Singleton | 16 October 2005

Twenty years ago, you'd go into a British cafe and the choice of coffee would be between a regular and - if you were lucky - a cappuccino. The regular might be filter coffee if you were lucky, but could just as easily be freeze-dried (a concept Americans find barbaric).

Then something happened. Trendy coffee chains started appearing. Instead of ordering "a cup of coffee", we started ordering a venti skinny latte, a grande mocha with whipped cream or a Espresso Macchiato. Personally, I like a tall skinny Americano - although I sometimes have it black.

Some complain about "Clone Town Britain" - the idea that big companies are bringing conformity to the high street. But I think we'd all be a lot worse off had coffee chains like Starbucks, Caffe Nero, Costa and Coffee Republic not been able come in and raise quality and the diversity of coffees available. They may have put some people out of business, but I suspect that overall what they've done is to increase the size of the market - encouraging many of us to pick up a coffee on the way to work.