Coffee lovers both rejoice and despair

So I know that when I left for Ireland I was under the notion that everyone here just drank a lot of tea.  While this is actually true, I was quite surprised to find out that certain kinds of coffee are actually really popular in Ireland.  In general, it appears that espresso drinks are actually really big in Dublin, with people going out for coffee more often than tea.  Coffee drinks generally consist of espresso, macchiato, cappuccino, americano and latte.  Mocha's are usually offered but very few people order them.  Don't expect to find any over the top drinks like you would at say Dutch brothers of Starbucks (white chocolate mocha, pumpkin spice latte).  So I guess if you love coffee shops you should get along splendidly in Ireland.

However, coffee does have a dark-side here.  If you just like a black cup of drip coffee in the morning or during the day you are in the wrong place.  Almost nowhere serves black coffee and people don't make it at home.  Instead they use instant coffee like Americans did a long time ago (some people might have a french press but very few own coffee machines).  The main reason for this is probably because the Irish really do like tea and they can make it easily at home in place of a cup of black coffee.  However, they can't make espresso so they go out to cafes to get their coffee fix in a way similar to how we do.  

This is both bad and good for me.  It is bad because back home I usually just like to get a cup of coffee and add a little sugar and milk to it, so at the beginning this difference in coffee really sucked.  However, now it is amazing because my work makes amazing coffee drinks to help set them apart from other cafes and I basically get free coffee drinks all day long whenever I want them.  I like a cappuccino or macchiato when I am casually working during the day and a shot of espresso really helps during the busy shifts.  So while I might not be getting paid, the job definitely has its perks.