Starbucks America Has Discovered The Flat White And Is About To Ruin It Forever

Remember when the New York Times dropped its monocle in its champagne after discovering cafes in Australia do coffee and breakfast at the same time? Now America is having another moment of collective belated discovery over the flat white, a drink that has managed to fly under the radar of the USA’s garbage coffee culture for around thirty years. We pay $2.19 for songs on iTunes, have to watch Game of Thrones on Foxtel and have been hosting Redfoo and the Madden brothers for far too long, so it’s kind of nice to beat America at something for once.

In the last few months, American news outlets and foodie blogs have been reporting on the existence of the flat white the way conspiracy theorists trade grainy photos of Bigfoot sightings. “The flat white — that espresso-and-milk drink that is as ubiquitous to Antipodean culture as meat pies and Lamingtons — is having something of a moment in Los Angeles,” reports the LA Times in an article literally titled “how to order a cup of coffee like Russell Crowe”, while food blog thing Bon Appetit tells us that “the latest Aussie invasion has nothing to do with beers, bands, or crocodiles“. That sentence was undoubtedly followed by the writer cracking their knuckles in satisfaction and glancing affectionately at their framed Bachelor’s from the Throw Another Shrimp On The Barbie School of Australian Studies.

Now Starbucks, the Walmart of coffee, has their sights on Australia’s national drink that isn’t beer, announcing plans to introduce their own interpretation of the flat white across their American stores on January 6. Maybe it’s payback for the 61 stores they had to close in 2008 after Australians roundly rejected the chain and its binwater coffee, but if Starbucks can’t destroy Australian coffee culture here, they’ll sure as hell do it on their home turf.

To make matters worse, the Americans still have no idea what a flat white actually is, which doesn’t bode well for their upcoming attempts to start making them. Quartz tried to figure it out by asking fellow Americans, and got some descriptions reminiscent of that guy who tried to draw a rhino, having never actually seen one.

So beware, expats in the US — when you see the “flat white” magically materialise at the Starbucks you reluctantly frequent, be not seduced. It is not a flat white. It is an abomination.

–

Feature image via Russell James Smith on a Flickr Creative Commons licence.