Letters to the Editor
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What should they do? Stop over-roasting the beans!
I have probably bought Starbucks coffee 5 times in the last 5 years, always under duress, always in an airport. And I have never finished a cup. Because they over-roast their beans, and as someone else mentioned, as a result the coffee tastes burnt. And harsh. I just don't like it. I like strong coffee (which is why I won't drink Coffee Bean either--it tastes like dirty water) but not burnt coffee.
On road trips we seek out local bagel shops to get breakfast, or we go to a Denny's. The coffee isn't usually great but at least there's something there to eat. So I guess another thing Starbucks could do would be to figure out how to sell good food. When we just want coffee on a road trip, we usually drive through a Burger King, which gets you coffee that's better than gas station & doesn't taste burnt.
At home in LA we brew our own using beans from City Bean (really good Kenya AA beans), which we now have to order because the City Bean near my office closed down. It survived years on a corner opposite a Starbucks, but when a giant Peet's moved into the third corner it closed down. Now it's a Pinkberry, ugh.
And, well, now we just don't drink coffee any more. Gave it up last summer pre-pregnancy, and leaving behind a 12-year habit has actually been a relief. More time in the morning, tons more counter space (good-bye coffeemaker & grinder!), less money spent, less waste. I do miss caffeine occasionally, but at this point a little green tea after lunch would probably do the trick. Hopefully that won't be my gateway drug right back to where I started. At least for now I never have to suffer through burnt coffee just because it's the only caffeine you can find anywhere and everywhere :)
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Starbucks in Australia
I'm Australian and we have Starbucks coffee shops scattered throughout the state of Victoria where I live.
I like to sit in relative comfort in an upholstered chair at a Starbucks coffee shop. I also don't mind the New York baked cheesecake with cream on the side, but suspect the cream is a watered down or adulterated dairy product even if it tastes kind of real.
I do find that the coffee can err on the side of weakness, with an occasional bitter brew on offer, but prefer it over the hot caffeine liquid on offer at the Gloria Jeans franchise. In regards to the latter establishment, on one occasion I was served a particularly undrinkable bitter latte and the staff officiously replaced it with an equally vile one. The 'barrista' made an espresso for himself and was satisfied with the taste. For the record, I am not an unreasonable coffee flavour snob who is intolerant of beans not roasted to perfection. I simply resent paying a little bit extra for a cup of burnt.
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I am not a coffee snob
I am not a coffee snob, honest, but I get all my coffee from supermarkets in the Dominican Republic.
The best brands are Monte Royale, which has a wonderful chocolaty aroma and Santo Domingo which is a bit more musky. Both are excellent and when bought in the DR cost about $2.25 per pound.
I usually add Nido brand full cream milk powder, and if I want sugar some dark brown sugar.
Here in the US I cannot find any decent coffee either in the stores, or in Starbucks. I had HEARD of Starbucks for years and assumed that they must have a very superior kind of coffee since the prices were so high, but I had never bought a coffee there because the menus and terminology were way to advanced for a regular Joe like me.
Eventually I did get round to buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I think it was at Miami airport. Of course I was very disappointed. When you are paying the price of two pounds of regular coffee you expect something really, really good and you want fresh milk and cream, organic hand-harvested sugar, the works.
Well, maybe their coffee was marginally better than the piss you get in gas stations, but not much.
So I concluded that Starbucks nothing but hype. This story seems to confirm it.
BTW, if you are at Miami airport the Cuban place does a much better cup of coffee for a lot less money.
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I only drink coffee made from beans extruded
through the bowels of a nearly extinct Capybara from the western bank, not the eastern, of the Amazon. Then the dung is gently filtered through hairnets made of the hair of sacrificed Marxist revolutionaries and roasted over a solar furnace.
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Start by getting a soul in the first place
I don't know where Howard gets off talking about Starbucks having a "soul" in the first place.
This is a company that does everything it can to destroy locally-owned coffee shops or force them to tear their hearts out -- turning themselves into impersonal glass-and-chrome nonentities just to "compete".
We lost our local coffee-gathering house this way when the shopping center it was in allowed a Starbucks to move in. Another local shop told us that their rent was raised to an astronomical amount, forcing them to close up, and a Starbucks promptly took their place.
Other than the unaffordable prices, Starbucks is the Wal-Mart of coffee places. In the past, it's punished workers for trying to start a union or become part of one, and I'm not even going into the whole fair-trade debacle... but the next time you get a Starbucks coffee, don't just ask if it's fair-trade, ask them where their milk comes from, or the eggs for those indigestible pastries.
None of this is new, this has always been Starbucks, as long as I can remember. Meditation on the Coffeeness of Coffee won't improve the product or the reputation.
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Heh...
>And their coffee does taste burnt, supposedly so people are encouraged to upbuy to the more expensive drinks<
The irony is is that their more expensive drinks taste burnt, too. :) The only Starbucks I've found decent is the bottled Dark Chocolate Peppermint Frappuccino, which has a nice smooth taste--and is cheaper than buying the equivalent at a SBs. As a rule, I stick to Seattle's Best over at Borders however--their marbled mochas are excellent...