Costa Coffee @ Chippenham High Street

Costa Coffee @ Chippenham High Street 10/01/2012.

Costa Background.

*Costa Coffee operates 1175 outlets in the United Kingdom as of January 2011, making it the largest British chain in terms of stores. Internationally it operates 442 stores throughout the world in 28 countries.""
Costa Coffee is a multi nations coffeehouse company headquartered in Dunstable, United Kingdom and a wholly owned subsidiary of Whitbread. It is the largest coffeehouse chain in the United Kingdom and second-largest in the world (behind Starbucks).
Costa Coffee was founded in London in 1971 by the Italian brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa, as a wholesale operation supplying roasted coffee to caterers and specialist Italian coffee shops. It was acquired by Whitbread in 1995, since when it has grown to over 1,700 stores across 28 countries.*
(Wikipedia, 10/01/2012)

The Store.

On entering the store, as per any other costa outlets I have visited, it had wonderful looking displays, a nice amount of tables and chairs inside for the room they had, as well as a couple of tables outside for the smokers/nice weather (when it happens). I have no gripe with how costa stores look, in fact I really like the rustic feel their cafes have.

The Service.

As a whole the outlet wasn't particularly busy, there was a few customers before my group, but the wait time was acceptable. We were served in a very up front manner, with my group ordering a flat white, not to hot (I like to be able to drink my drink straight away) a regular latte extra hot and an americano.
The woman serving us then relayed our order to the barista creating drinks in a simple, yet dull tone, our drinks were prepared almost instantly.
While the drinks were being prepared I took notice of the coffee seeming to extract almost instantly on one of the shots and the barista was not purging the steam wand before steaming the milk. Other than the slight mishaps, the routine of the barista was spot on.
On creating the drinks the americano was simple and done correctly, the flat white was given a small, yet very pleasing rosetta on top, and the latte was a glass of steamed milk, with the shots thrown on, topped up with more milk.
When praising the latte art on the flat white the only response we got was a sarcastic smile and a grunted "mmm".

It does make me question how they can take pride in the presentation of one drink but not another?

The Coffee

Upon starting to drink the flat white which I requested to be not to hot it resembled molten lava and the taste can only be described as horrific.
When measured correctly I really enjoy the costa blend, but either on this visit their machines were not set up correctly, or were using REALLY old beans. With the flat white being my drink of choice I have become accounted with how they taste from the various coffee shops I visit.
The initial taste of the short espresso was over powerfully strong with the after taste similar to sucking on a coffee soaked lemon, which stayed in my mouth for more than 20 seconds after taking a sip.
The latte wasn't a lot to write home about either, the milk:coffee ratio was all wrong, hardly tasting any coffee so it was quite difficult to decipher how the coffee was extracted, and frankly just resembled drinking a cup of hot milk.

Overview

The overview that I have of costa at the moment is very hit or miss, they either get it right, or very wrong.
Over all visit score 2/10, 3 lost on the coffee and 5 on the poor customer service.

Scott Lambert.
Twitter: @baristablogsuk -- for the quick, real time reviews & coffee tips.
*Costa Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Coffee