YAGGAGC

Londoners, bless 'em, are very savvy about many things. Most, for example, know that bicycle-rickshaws, Harrods, and Madame Tussauds are London's biggest rip-offs and are to be avoided at all costs. But you could guess that. Some have the Central London Tube Map etched into their cerebrum, allowing instant journey planning and trouble-avoidance:


Not bad. Unfortunately though, very few Londoners would know a good cup of coffee from a bucket of tar. (This does put them ahead of most Americans though, whose drink of choice is a bucket of burnt tar).

As such, finding a really good coffee when you're away from your known-good haunts can be really tough. So Johnny, programmer-nerd, coffee-snob, and soon-to-be-ex-Londoner, has come up with a ready-reckoning system to give you the best possible chance of finding something passable. If any of the following conditions is TRUE, You Ain't Gonna Get A Good Coffee. Sorry. As a consolation, the further you get down the list, the better it will probably be:

• The establishment lists "Coffee" on the same line as "Tea" on the menu
• The particular style of coffee (e.g. Cappuccino) is spelt wrongly
• After taking your order for your Cappuccino/Latte/Whatever, your server turns and punches a button on a machine, and turns back to you
• You can't see the milk that's going into your coffee
• The café does not have a big, chromey, Italian coffee machine sitting prominently on the front counter
  
• The café does not have a freshly topped-up bean-grinder next to the big Italian coffee machine
• You have to add your own sugar at the end of the process
  
• The coffee machine does not have a human servant tending to its every whim and foible, meticulously wiping it down between shots, whispering sweet nothings in its openings, and generally treating it like the deity it is
• Your coffee-preparer does not bash the living hell out of the groupheads between cups to make sure there's no old grounds left in there
  
• Your coffee-preparer does not watch the milk as they froth it (despite having done it a million times before)

So there you have it. Good luck, intrepid coffee-connoisseurs, and May The Froth Be With You ...