Finding the best coffee in airports

Watching people, and seeing what they do can really show you some great insights. If you look at people as a group, seeing patterns in behaviours can be really telling about what’s going on around you. It’s a bit like looking at web analytics, what I spend a fair bit of my time doing at blackdog.ie. Seeing trends / patterns in real life people is a lot more interesting than web traffic, I’ve found.

Most of the time we don’t have the opportunity to sit back and observe, to take the time to see why people are doing what they are doing. But this morning I’ve had an extended stay at Cork Airport waiting on my flight. I was looking for the best place to have breakfast and what to have, and the best place in the airport to have coffee. I had time on my hands so I started to look at people.

Within 15 – 20 minutes of watching what people do and where they go I was able to see the the better breakfast place was different to the coffee place. Smokers tended to drink one type of coffee, and people on the go went somewhere else. I actively ignored flyers, concentrating on the staff members, as they have to get breakfast / lunch and coffee every day.

I’m sure you can apply similar analysis to other things around you, just stop and sit back and try to observe some trends.

btw.

  • the best coffee in Cork airport : ReFuel (downstairs), get an extra shot for 50 cents ,
  • best breakfast in Cork airport : Food Market (upstairs), granted there isn’t really much of an option. But I did see that the toast was very popular.

Real reviews of businesses ?

coffee ripoff from cork
coffee ripoff from cork

In my epic search today for some whole coffee beans (whole coffee beans doesn’t sound right) I came across this review for Cork Coffee Roasters which in my opinion stinks of coming from someone attached to the company. It goes something like this:

It was really good value too, and a great place of breakfast. Inside the café on Bridge Street it’s quite small, but nicely warm and homey. It’s pretty popular, with lots of locals coming in for their morning take-away coffee. All the beans used in the blends here are hand roasted in Cork, and a lot of the pastries on sale are made using only organic ingredients.

Maybe I am just too sensitive to totally positive reviews.  It seems like it’s too overdone, what ever you business you have you will have good reviews, and not so good reviews, but you should not try to go out and blatentally try to game these review sites. Someone will see it, and possibly call you out. When looking at Amazon reviews for books and products, you can spot when they are coming from the Authod/someone attached to be product/etc.

And as for their “really good value”, I took a look at their site, for the prices of their beans which they charge from €30 for 1kg (which I can get it for 1/2 the price in Germany), I really wonder how someone could say that it was good value.

Anyone know where one can get some reasonably priced whole coffee beans ?