Jack Tame: Shooting the breeze at Starbucks

Many Americans haven't heard of a flat white. Photo / NZME.

Okay, so I bottomed out. Jet-lagged, sickly and more self-pitying than usual, I cut a pathetic silhouette across the mall car park.

And then I went to Starbucks.

I'm not a big fan of Starbucks. I have no problem with business or money or corporate megabrands, I just really loathe homogeneous coffee.

America's chain store lionising leaves you with the same menu at every stop. Capitalism hasn't created choice. Right across the 50 states, it has created soul-withering conformity.

I remember visiting the original Starbucks in Seattle. There was a line out the door. "Ah, people," I wanted to announce, "you know you can get exactly the same vente frappe at about a million other stores?"

Anyway.

So I decided to wallow in self-loathing with an oversized bucket of whatever they normally serve. Instead, I bought a flat white. That's right, Starbucks in America has our coffee. You may have read of plans to take it to the US and now it has been.

Of course, many Americans haven't heard of a flat white.

Explaining our coffee is less fraught than explaining our sports teams ("flat white" draws noticeably fewer racial queries than "All Blacks"), but Starbucks' claim that its flat white "honours coffee artistry", must have had even its cheesiest marketing gurus spluttering into their crema.

I ordered a small flat white, which in America comes in a stein, and the guy behind me did the same. We struck up a conversation: he showed me his handgun and I noted the drink we'd both ordered is a staple of my home.

"Oh you're from Australia," the lady on the espresso machine said happily as she blasted a vat of milk.

"What's this thing taste like, anyway?" said the guy with the Glock.

"It's like a latte with more coffee," she replied.

I bid farewell to gun guy and as I drew the searing-and-somewhat-bitter coffee to my lips, felt I'd done quite the national service by not bothering to correct anyone.

• Jack Tame is on Newstalk ZB, Saturdays, 9am-midday.