Glasgow apparently has no bad coffee shops. That, at least, is what the internet would have you believe. Across the city, cafés sit serenely at 4.6, 4.7 and 4.8 stars, which either means Glasgow has achieved a level of caffeinated excellence unknown to the rest of humanity, or we have all become incapable of giving a pleasant wee café three stars and getting on with our lives.

So The Speaker has begun an investigation: Why Are There No Bad Coffee Shops in Glasgow? We’re going to drink the coffee, eat the cake, sit on the furniture, pay the bill and find out whether those extraordinary ratings bear any resemblance to the experience. No ambushes, no performative outrage and no kicking local businesses for sport. If somewhere is brilliant, we’ll celebrate it. If it’s merely fine, we reserve the revolutionary right to call it fine.

For Review No. 1, The Adoptee chose Ottoman Coffee House on Berkeley Street.

This was a catastrophic strategic error.

Because if you are trying to establish that Glasgow may be getting a little carried away with its coffee, beginning with a café that has been ranked among the best coffee shops in the world is roughly equivalent to investigating whether Scottish scenery is overrated by starting at Glencoe.

The Adoptee went in anyway. There was a series to uphold and, more importantly, coffee had already been ordered.

Ottoman does not feel like somewhere that accidentally became good. There is theatre to it, character and the pleasing sense that someone has actually thought about what happens between walking through the door and taking the first sip. It is distinctive without looking as though the entire interior arrived in a crate labelled Artisan Coffee Shop Starter Pack.

Then the coffee turned up and caused a more serious problem.

It was excellent.

Not “excellent for Glasgow”, which would be an insult disguised as praise, nor “excellent considering the hype”. It was the sort of cup that makes you take another sip before saying anything because the prosecution has just watched its star witness change sides.

The whole premise of this series relies upon The Adoptee maintaining a healthy degree of suspicion. A city cannot have this many highly rated cafés without something peculiar happening. Review inflation, excessive politeness, caffeine-induced generosity, perhaps an organised conspiracy involving Google Maps and oat milk.

Ottoman, unfortunately, offers very little assistance to any of these theories.

What it does offer is an early lesson in what this series probably needs to become. We are not hunting for Glasgow’s worst coffee shop. Frankly, we hope we never find it. We are asking whether the places receiving extraordinary praise actually deserve it, because when somewhere really is exceptional, that is worth knowing too.

And there is something rather lovely about the possibility that our original suspicion might occasionally be wrong.

Perhaps Glasgow does have unusually good coffee. Perhaps a 4.7 sometimes means exactly what everybody thinks it means.

The Adoptee is not conceding the entire investigation after one café, obviously. There are dozens more establishments to visit, cakes to price, chairs to assess and flat whites waiting to explain themselves.

But after Review No. 1, the scoreboard reads: Glasgow coffee shops: 1. The Speaker’s grand theory: 0.

This could take a while.