Big names in the coffee business

Coffee today seems to be all about the big brands. If you're out on a cold day and all you want is something to warm you up, you have a choice between Starbucks, Costa Coffee, Nero's and whatever local chain is brave enough to attempt to get into the game with these giants of the coffee shop industry.

Granted, coffee shops, especially multinational chains do give you good value for money, depending on the way you like your coffee to taste. Some coffee aficionados swear by smaller, more intimate establishments which may just be coffee snobbery, or imply a genuine difference in the quality of the coffee available at a big chain cafe or a small-town, single outlet one.

Starbucks is the ubiquitous coffee chain whose global dominance is often seen in terms of coffee colonization. Having started in Seattle, Starbucks outlets are now not merely confined to the United States, but have outposts as far away as Singapore and Japan. While Starbucks began as a coffee shop, it now roasts and stocks its own brand of coffee, in different varieties the most of famous of them being the House blend.

Costa Coffee is a brand that was founded in the UK by two Italian brothers, who specialised in creating a unique blend that they called a slow-roasted blend of mocha italia. The strong selling point that Costa maximises on is the Italianness of their coffee, an aspect reflected in the ambience of their cafes and, they claim, in the unique taste of their coffee. While this has been controversial, with many people claiming that they are Italian only in name and are heavily modified in order to suit the British palate, there is no doubt that Costa remains a very popular brand and also has outlets across the globe.

Caffe Nero is another Italian-founded coffee shop chain that has its roots in the UK. While Caffe Nero has a good presence within the UK, its overseas operations are confined in the present to Turkey and the UAE. Caffe Nero, whose menu is mostly espresso based drinks, recently launched a new range of cold-coffee drinks, and added to their repertoire of flavoured coffee drinks as well.

Gloria Jean's Coffees, originally founded in Chicago, USA, now operate in over 30 countries across the globe. The brand is especially popular in Australia, enjoying a significant presence in all the major towns and cities in the country. Gloria Jean's Coffees are generally rich drinks, and have come under fire recently for their excessive sugar content and lack of adequate nutritional information provided to customers.

While these are a few players in the global coffee market, countries tend to have local chains whose presence in small towns and cities is prolific. The best examples of these are Beanscene in Scotland, Cafe Coffee Day and Barista in India and Cafe Trieste in California, USA. While these brands may not be global players, their emphasis on quality in the areas they do operate in ensure them a near monopoly on all coffee consumption in cafes in their particular regions.