Northallerton - once said to have Europe’s finest ale - appears to be changings its tastes

MR MORRINGTON’S view has been cited these past three centuries, chiefly by innkeepers and defendants at the petty sessions.

At one time, it’s reckoned, Northallerton High Street alone had 27 pubs. Times change. Now there may be nearly as many coffee outlets; even the juke box and old record shop, even the tattoo parlour, also sell coffee.

Truly their cup runneth over: there’s an awful lot of coffee in Northallerton.

Back in April, it may be recalled, the burghers of Cheltenham cited grounds for concern after proposals to open an 11th Costa outlet in the town – one for every 10,000 residents, it was reckoned.

It prompted a letter to The Times, which already had devoted a sober leader to the subject, from Mr Brian Robson in Northallerton. “Cheltenham hasn’t reached peak Costa,” he wrote, adding that North Yorkshire’s county town had three Costas – one for every 5,000 folk – and all within about a quarter-of-a-mile as a caffeinated crow might fly.

Once the most English of market towns, the whole place seems to be developing a taste for things Italian. Even Casa Rustica has moved premises to become Case Grande.

None has claimed a greater coffee concentration, but even then Mr Robson was watering things down a bit. There’s also a greatly popular Costa Express – a touch-screen vending machine included in the Cheltenham survey – at County Hall.

Costa, as its logo suggests, began in 1971 when brothers Bruno and Sergio Costa started selling coffee to a few retailers in London. The first Costa coffee shop opened in 1978. Whitbread bought the company for £23m in 1995 and still wholly owns it.

Now there are around 2,100 Costas in Britain and a new £38m “carbon neutral” roastery in Paradise Street, Basildon that can supply 2.1bn cups a year. There are outlets, says the brand website, “in more than 29 countries”.

Why do companies – and newspapers – do that? What’s more than 29? Thirty? Three hundred? It’s not what you’d call site specific.

Clearly they’re doing much right, so great a success story that the chief coffee taster’s tongue is insured for £10m. They fight poverty, promote literacy, embrace ecology, demand diversity. It’s only the toasties that are iffy.

In the name of research, the column has visited all three Costa stores, on separate days. Resisting what a scientist might call a control experiment, we never did try the strong ale.

THURSDAY, High Street, 3.30pm. This one’s between a baker’s and a health food shop – “a little cup of happiness,” it claims. Costa loves its empty aphorisms.

Immediately outside, a couple of kids aged seven or eight are trying to persuade their mother to go in. It’s what the world’s coming to: when ours were that age, they begged to be taken to the pub.

Thirty or so are drinking it all in, most sufficiently at home to have hung coats over the back of the chair. The atmosphere appears convivial, the service efficient, the small queue constantly replenished.

We sit beneath a mural of an Italian laundry. A lass with “Barista” on the back of her shirt is clearing tables. Isn’t that what the Romans might have called infra dig?

The only problem is that it’s not really a little cup of happiness at all. A “regular” Americano, £2 60, comes in a cup so large that – as the lady of this house supposes – a toddler might learn to swim in it. You’d never want two, or to join the irregular army.

It’s a safe bet, however, that – coming up Thursday tea time – every one of Northallerton’s pubs would give a free bag of beefy to be just half as busy as this.

FRIDAY lunchtime, Tesco. The supermarket’s across the road from the former prison, now being demolished.

One Christmas many years ago, I asked an old bird in there what he’d most miss on the Big Day. “Being able to walk 100 yards in a straight line,” he said.

The slammer was ceaselessly noisy and smelt (among other things) of boiled cabbage. I’d still have found it less scary than the supermarket. Apparently the recognised term is officinaphobia, a fear of shops and shopping, though I fear in turn that folk go round making these words up.

Costa’s at the front of the store, one or two of the customers rather looking as if they’d been let out on day release and forgotten about when the prison shut shop.

“Handcrafting coffee since 1971,” claims the board outside, though what’s so special about hand-crafted coffee – or hand-tied bouquets for that matter – remains a mystery.

About 25 are in, attempts to create an Italian aura rather hampered by the well-thumbed Daily Express in the paper rack. Whatever happened to Corriere della Sera?

The lady has a haloumi and roast red pepper toastie, which she enjoys, I a late-in-the-day breakfast bloomer. The bloomer’s a mistake: the eggy bit mushy, the bacon the approximate size of a twopenny stamp. Is this what Tesco means by “Every little helps”?

FRIDAY morning – a different Friday morning – Applegarth car park. The lady recognises the building at once. “It used to be the public lavvies, there was a long campaign to get them built,” she says.

Conveniently converted, this one has slogans like “We make the coffee, you make the decisions”, “We put our heart and soul into every cup” and, worst of all, “Every cup’s a masterpiece, every sip an experience.”

Who comes up with this stuff?

About 30 are in. Notionally multiply that by the number of coffee places in Northallerton and that’s about 1,000 gallons. Don’t folk have anything else to do?

The coffee’s “medio” or “massimo”, the milk “primo.” Dunno. The coffee’s fine, The chicken fajita hot wrap (£3 85) reminiscent of a pub toastie, circa 1968. Readers must decide for themselves whether that’s a compliment.

The lady has a goat cheese and sweet chilli something-or-other, thinks it perfectly acceptable.

Half way through, a heavily laden Costa delivery van arrives. Whether there’s a blue light atop it’s not possible to see, but in the town which once excelled all England for strong ale, it’s very likely that there is.