And it is not just a Starbucks.
Before tea came to symbolize a civilization on a group of islands off the coast of France, there was coffee.
Tea did such a thorough mind wipe on the world that the proud British coffee houses were forgotten, some lonely flyers in museums being the last witnesses of the coffee craze on the isles before tea.
If you tried to get a coffee in London as recent as fifteen or twenty years ago, you had three choices: find that ten square foot Italian coffee bar tucked away in one of the mainline railway stations next to the barber and the public toilets, drink a very strange liquid made in percolators, or drink instant coffee.
Instant coffee was what your average citizen understood to be coffee. Well, there was the percolator stuff, thick like liquid asphalt after a day of boiling and with a taste to match, but the brown crystals of instant coffee ruled the day.
Today, there are bright and bustling coffee shops everywhere. Enough of them to make TheEditor believe that exports of Italian espresso machines to the UK must have kept the southern European economy afloat for a decade.
There is hope for humankind.
Outside of London, you may still encounter some of the more familiar bad coffee places but they are doomed, their nice old lady owners glancing with nostalgia at the picture of the Queen in the corner whenever someone tries to order a latte.
The K-Landnews team does not have a good understanding of any effects of the coffee surge on British society, but we do suspect that even some of the euroscepticism ravaging the nation is fueled by real espressos and damn tasty lattes.
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