"When will they open a Starbucks in Brussels?!"

I hear this gut-wrenching cry of desperation all too often around here in B-town, often following or preceding the cry "The Belgians just don't understand good coffee." Though I don't fully agree with the latter or sympathize with the former, I do think the coffee culture in Belgium is interesting enough blog about. What is most remarkable is that a country with so many patrons of the gastronimic arts could virtually ignore a beverage that both the Dutch and French so thoroughly enjoy. Add to this the diverse influences from the Spanish, the Austrians, and the French, each of which held a noble court here for many decades, and it becomes even more baffling.

Coffee in Belgium generally exists in two forms, caffeinated and decaffeinated. On many occasions, usually in nice restaurants, you can get a "cappucino" or an "espresso", but these creations would cause riots in Rome and brief disorientation, followed by acute localised slander in coffee-chic areas of the U.S. Essentially, the Barista is a title bestowed on only a rare few members of Belgian cafe society. 90% of coffee made in cafes of Brussels comes from a machine. "Monsieur, un cafe au lait sil-vous-plais, et un cappucino pour la madame. " The server then walks over to a large shiny apparatus, places an 8-10 oz cup beneath the spout, presses a button, et voila! A perfect, rich, heady cup of coffee is produced. For the cappucino, a slightly larger cup is placed under the same spout, a different button is pressed which yields a slightly stronger coffee brew, and then spews a thick, dry topping of foam perfectly every time. I have never been disappointed by a cup of coffe, though I've only rarely been excited by one, and this usually follows a 60 dollar meal. Pouring chocolate syrup into coffee would be sinful. If you want a mocha, eat the wonderful Belgian chocolate served with every cup. Have a hankering for Caramel? No Luck. In Essence, Belgium, like other European countries, is not the place for people who drink lots of coffee, but who do not actually like the taste of it. A plain coffee in the U.S. that comes in a towering pint and tastes faintly of the beans that made it is unheard of here, not to mention the paper cup. Condense all that goodness down into a ceramic cup half its size, add heavy cream, an assortment of chocoloates and, on occaision, an array of speculose (butter wafers) and you have a perfectly predictable and economical coffee experience. But if you want a comfortable mocha to take with you on the road, this creation is still (fortunately) at odds with Belgian cultural values. Even if the nicer coffee shops here offered take-out coffee, I don't see why anybody would buy it. Cafes here exist as a place for people to go and sit with a friend and chat, not to line up for tall Late. And on a more practical note, the cars here don't have cupholders, and if you spill your coffee on your lap in Brussels, you have nobody to blame for it but yourself.