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In Australia they are making barista coffee machines that make reasonable good Lattes! (and definitely better than starbuccks). I think it was Coles “Urban Coff

In Australia they are making barista coffee machines that make reasonable good Lattes! (and definitely better than starbuccks). I think it was Coles “Urban Coffee”. Not as amazing as a light roast single O from a coffee obsessed cafe. But better than a lot of coffee shops!

supportengineer 3y ago
I saw a barista robot in SFO but didn’t have time to try it.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Would love to see that. In theory a robot could make perfect coffee, latte art, etc.
esfandia 3y ago
In Thailand they have these Tao Bin barista coffee machines: https://www.tao-bin.com/en/en https://www.tao-bin.com/en/en Great UI: there's a countdown to when your order is going to be ready, and while you're waiting the next person can also enter their order.
kleiba 3y ago
I'm going against the grain here but I don't really subscribe to the starbucks bashing that seems to be a common sport. I don't go to Starbucks very often at all, mostly at airports, but in all honesty I find there's nothing wrong with it. As in: I've had hand-crafted coffees made by no-nonsense barristas with man buns in the most artisan brick-walled coffee shops that you can think of and I didn't think they were a lot better. Maybe I'm just not enough of a purist though. But then again, probably most people aren't. Let's not forget what you average cup of coffee was like in America before Starbucks came along.
- astrange 3y ago
  Most people don't encounter enough Australians to know this, but the #1 way to identify an Australian is their absurd patriotic complex about how they're the only country with good coffee. This universally comes with insulting Starbucks, which is the only non-Australian coffee they seem to know about. It's true that Melbourne does have good coffee, but the city is basically an accidental reinvention of Seattle. But they don't know this since they haven't been to Seattle. Generally I feel like people in the coffee production chain give too much credit to James Hoffman types and/or baristas with man buns and not any credit to the actual farmers.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    Australia/NZ was the only place with good coffee a long time ago but that ship has sailed, you can get great coffee everywhere. Also I am not so much bashing starbucks as using it as a yardstick to say a machine can make good coffee from fresh beans, which I find amazing
    - kleiba 3y ago
      True. As a matter of fact, almost all coffee making involves machines, at least when we're talking about the espresso variety. For years, fully automatic coffee makers have been a big trend even in consumer electronics, i.e., lots of homes have machines sitting on their counter top that make all kinds of coffees at the push of a button. Why shouldn't a vending machine be able to do the same...
  - kleiba 3y ago
    I've met many Australians, and have not experienced what you describe. If anything, coffee culture is a Melbourne thing, with Brisbane being en par. I have not heard of, say, Perth being especially known for their association with coffee drinking. As far as I know, it is thanks to immigrants from Italy that an admittedly good and wide-spread coffee culture has established in Melbourne, but I never felt that it stood out in how Australians perceive themselves.
    - defrost 3y ago
- tomhoward 3y ago
  It's fine to just like what you like! There's nothing wrong with being happy with Starbucks. And yes, Starbucks deserves a lot of credit for promoting an interest in better quality coffee. But a lot of what has attracted Starbucks' huge audience has been their very milky, sweetened, flavoured beverages that end up not being much of a coffee by the time they're consumed, and I think when people scoff at Starbucks, that's a big part of what they're reacting to. But I do think people who just have very milky coffee like cafe latte and flat white but then diss Starbucks are mostly just being snobbish. I'm from Melbourne Australia, which several people in this thread have commented about, and I know what people are talking about, both those who talk about the good coffee here and those who talk about the superiority complex we have developed about it. I can see it both ways. Starbucks didn't take off here, not because people thought it was "bad"; we just didn't need it, as people already had favourite cafes serving coffee they really liked, so there was no need to change. But the modern-day, 3rd-wave coffee snobbery thing arose a few years after that. On the one hand, like everything Melbourne claims to be better at, it can be a bit eye-rolly. On the other hand, my favourite coffee these days is long macchiato (I developed the taste for it when spending time in Italy and marrying into an Italian-Australian family), and even in Melbourne it can be hit-and-miss finding a cafe that does a long-mac "right"; I don't mean to be snobby about it, it's just about how I like it having developed a taste for it over several years. But it does make a difference that cafes here do try very hard to achieve very high standards in the coffee they serve, and people here really appreciate it.

supportengineer 3y ago

I saw a barista robot in SFO but didn’t have time to try it.

quickthrower2 3y ago
Would love to see that. In theory a robot could make perfect coffee, latte art, etc.

esfandia 3y ago

In Thailand they have these Tao Bin barista coffee machines: https://www.tao-bin.com/en/en https://www.tao-bin.com/en/en Great UI: there's a countdown to when your order is going to be ready, and while you're waiting the next person can also enter their order.

kleiba 3y ago

I'm going against the grain here but I don't really subscribe to the starbucks bashing that seems to be a common sport. I don't go to Starbucks very often at all, mostly at airports, but in all honesty I find there's nothing wrong with it. As in: I've had hand-crafted coffees made by no-nonsense barristas with man buns in the most artisan brick-walled coffee shops that you can think of and I didn't think they were a lot better. Maybe I'm just not enough of a purist though. But then again, probably most people aren't. Let's not forget what you average cup of coffee was like in America before Starbucks came along.

astrange 3y ago
Most people don't encounter enough Australians to know this, but the #1 way to identify an Australian is their absurd patriotic complex about how they're the only country with good coffee. This universally comes with insulting Starbucks, which is the only non-Australian coffee they seem to know about. It's true that Melbourne does have good coffee, but the city is basically an accidental reinvention of Seattle. But they don't know this since they haven't been to Seattle. Generally I feel like people in the coffee production chain give too much credit to James Hoffman types and/or baristas with man buns and not any credit to the actual farmers.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Australia/NZ was the only place with good coffee a long time ago but that ship has sailed, you can get great coffee everywhere. Also I am not so much bashing starbucks as using it as a yardstick to say a machine can make good coffee from fresh beans, which I find amazing
  - kleiba 3y ago
    True. As a matter of fact, almost all coffee making involves machines, at least when we're talking about the espresso variety. For years, fully automatic coffee makers have been a big trend even in consumer electronics, i.e., lots of homes have machines sitting on their counter top that make all kinds of coffees at the push of a button. Why shouldn't a vending machine be able to do the same...
- kleiba 3y ago
  I've met many Australians, and have not experienced what you describe. If anything, coffee culture is a Melbourne thing, with Brisbane being en par. I have not heard of, say, Perth being especially known for their association with coffee drinking. As far as I know, it is thanks to immigrants from Italy that an admittedly good and wide-spread coffee culture has established in Melbourne, but I never felt that it stood out in how Australians perceive themselves.
  - defrost 3y ago
tomhoward 3y ago
It's fine to just like what you like! There's nothing wrong with being happy with Starbucks. And yes, Starbucks deserves a lot of credit for promoting an interest in better quality coffee. But a lot of what has attracted Starbucks' huge audience has been their very milky, sweetened, flavoured beverages that end up not being much of a coffee by the time they're consumed, and I think when people scoff at Starbucks, that's a big part of what they're reacting to. But I do think people who just have very milky coffee like cafe latte and flat white but then diss Starbucks are mostly just being snobbish. I'm from Melbourne Australia, which several people in this thread have commented about, and I know what people are talking about, both those who talk about the good coffee here and those who talk about the superiority complex we have developed about it. I can see it both ways. Starbucks didn't take off here, not because people thought it was "bad"; we just didn't need it, as people already had favourite cafes serving coffee they really liked, so there was no need to change. But the modern-day, 3rd-wave coffee snobbery thing arose a few years after that. On the one hand, like everything Melbourne claims to be better at, it can be a bit eye-rolly. On the other hand, my favourite coffee these days is long macchiato (I developed the taste for it when spending time in Italy and marrying into an Italian-Australian family), and even in Melbourne it can be hit-and-miss finding a cafe that does a long-mac "right"; I don't mean to be snobby about it, it's just about how I like it having developed a taste for it over several years. But it does make a difference that cafes here do try very hard to achieve very high standards in the coffee they serve, and people here really appreciate it.