My thoughts on Starbucks

[Red Oak Roaster]

Starbucks Coffee

Starbucks coffee is not great, it's not good, it's not even okay. It is over-raosted and over-rated. Their Carmel Machiato's don't come close to others from privately owned coffee shops.....Roast your own, enjoy the numerous advantages of fresh coffee vs. Starbucks shipped around the world stale 'coffee type drinks'.......

 

[Baugo]

I have asked several folks in my neck of the woods and some love-um but most (not java educated) say that it tastes charred or burnt. I think that if you put enough syrup in the cup even sock drippings will taste ok. But I also think that ANY GOOD or GREAT roaster/coffee house should belly up and take notes. Not to critique the coffee (we all know where that goes) but to study there products, their business platform in general SB as a company, in most cases, everyone’s competition. They are a very successful company even though there roasting needs a refreezer course, they are the big man on the court, maybe if we take notes and learn we might be able to reclaim some of the loins share. I am not saying that the coffee house out there don’t know what’s going on, just that we need to outthink the big guys. World domination though coffee………My .02
Oh and I have tasted tipped coffee’s that SB can not hold a candle to…

 

[glennkawesch]

Starbucks

Hello, Glenn Kawesch here.
Did you hear about the new low menu snacks at Starbucks? :grin:

Thanks,

Glenn Kawesch

 

[Merc]

Come on. Starbucks doesn't provide any great coffee. Its just a brand name!!!! I went to starbucks a few times. I order capuccino and latte most of the time and a few ice blended. THey are horrible. What i can say is, their cappuccino taste like latte and their latte taste like milk...... With the price I paid, I don't think is worth it.

 

[DML]

We don't have an emoticon for BARF or I would use it.

My wife was having some tests done at the hospital and I went looking for a cup of coffee. The cafeteria had a banner which proudly stated that they serve Starbucks coffee. Oh well, I thought, it won't be that bad. WRONG!!!

It was disgusting. I tried doctoring it with large amounts of half and half and sugar, but it was undrinkable. I dumped 3/4 of it in the trash. Actually, it was just like every other cup of coffee I have ever had at Starbucks. I should have known better. How can people drink this crap?

 

[billagirly]

In response to the post immediately above me, "proudly brewing Starbucks coffee" is NEVER going to be the same as drinking coffee FROM Starbucks, (opinions as to whether that's a good thing or bad thing aside). It's no different than if you bought a pound of coffee at Starbucks, let it sit around for a month, brewed it with unfiltered water, and kept it on the burner all day long.
At the very least, when you go into Starbucks and order coffee, you know it has triple-filtered water, the beans were somewhat fresh, and it has been brewed within the last hour.
They may not have the best product out there, but they're obviously doing something right. Maybe the "something right" is just marketing, but they're damn good at it, considering they've brainwashed society to think that is what their specialty coffee is supposed to taste like.

 

[DML]

billagirly:

I would agree with most of what you wrote if I haven't tried the coffee at half a dozen Starbucks. It all tastes the same.....BAD! The last time before the hospital was in Santa Barbara. It was fresh. I had to wait for it to finish brewing. It was awful.

A friend has a small B&B and serves Starbucks coffee. I asked him how he can serve that crap. His reply was, "That's what people have become used to."

There you go.....As you said, people have become brainwashed into thinking that Starbucks serves good coffee.

 

[CCafe]

In response to the post immediately above me, "proudly brewing Starbucks coffee" is NEVER going to be the same as drinking coffee FROM Starbucks, (opinions as to whether that's a good thing or bad thing aside). It's no different than if you bought a pound of coffee at Starbucks, let it sit around for a month, brewed it with unfiltered water, and kept it on the burner all day long.
At the very least, when you go into Starbucks and order coffee, you know it has triple-filtered water, the beans were somewhat fresh, and it has been brewed within the last hour.
They may not have the best product out there, but they're obviously doing something right. Maybe the "something right" is just marketing, but they're damn good at it, considering they've brainwashed society to think that is what their specialty coffee is supposed to taste like.

I'm not standing up for Starbucks or the people who proudly brew Starbucks.

1. Just because the water filtration has 3 or more cartridges doesn’t mean it is triple filtered. I’ve been in the back of too many coffee shops to know that it isn’t so.

2. It doesn’t matter if you’re drinking your coffee at Starbucks or from someone proudly serving Starbucks. The coffee is still most likely going to be a few weeks old, granted it will be packed in bag with a one-way valve. But the point is everyone orders this stuff in bulk. It may take them a day, week, month, or longer to use it. It depends on when they ordered it and how much.

3. I’ve had better coffee at some shops where they proudly serve due to better equipment used to make the coffee. They tend to be more knowledgeable about their business and want to provide a better service. These are the shops that truly put their heart and soul in to it.

Lastly, I have been in a few Starbucks where the coffee was horrible and the staff couldn’t tell you the difference from a stick and a hole in the ground. If your going to work in a coffeehouse you better be willing to drink your product. How else are you going to know if something is off?

Too many times I’ve said this is cold, or this is bitter. Then I get that awful reply, “oh I’m sorry would you like a another” my reply is “why don’t you try it!” Then I get the “I don’t drink coffee”

 

[billagirly]

Yeah, good points. I've gotten the "I don't drink coffee" response too - but when I worked for that company at one time, we had to do tastings and sampling and all kinds of stuff. Has everything changed with the implementations of drive thrus and fully automatic machines?

 

[Davec]

My view of starbucks is summed very wellup by one of my favourite characters - Foamy (and their coffee tastes like over roasted crap).


Edited by CCafe, any content requiring a parental advisory should not be displayed on the forum.

 

[DML]

I have a list of rules. This is number 6. I edited it a bit for this forum. The original word was not JERK. :wink:


6) New Rule: The more complicated the Starbucks order, the bigger the jerk. If you walk into a Starbucks and order a "decaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n'-Low and one NutraSweet," you are a really big jerk.

I would add one thing. Never order coffee or anything else from a teen-ager with green hair and an eye-brow/nose/lip ring. :roll:

 

[Davec]

My view of starbucks is summed very wellup by one of my favourite characters - Foamy (and their coffee tastes like over roasted crap).


Edited by CCafe, any content requiring a parental advisory should not be displayed on the forum.

Hmm...prehaps you ought to add this too the rules, I did check them before posting this and no mention was made of this particular rule. If a link to such content (and such link warns of a parental advisory), is not allowed, then it would help misunderstandings for relatively new members like me.

I personally think a little over the top in the case if these particular (humerous) links, but then if those are the forum rules, so be it. :?

 

[CCafe]

There is a lot of explicative language within the first 30 seconds. Even though it may be a spoof or a parody of Starbucks that is somewhat funny, it still could rub people the wrong way.

Besides if you were to write that way on any forum I would almost guarantee your post would be deleted.

 

[Dota Coffee]

I am drooling

i can not wait to get my hands in the topic. Starbucks sucks and everybody knows it but i have seen some pretty interesting views here, let me address some of them:

1- SB does not over roasts by mistake. They overroast to mask the "contribution" to the cup that their low cost fillers add. As simple as that. the longer you roast, the more you compress the range of flavor and aroma and they buy good beans (from our Tarrazu region) to make the over-roasted taste a bit better, at least have some personality.

2- SB does not sell coffee. they have created a culture of over packaged, over produced coffee drinks that is almost ridiculous. for instance, i own a coffee shop in costa rica and we are located in the town with a high flow of US tourists. as soon as i hear somebody ordering a double this with half of that and low fat caramel on the side, i know they are SB clients.

THE POINT IS THAT they get what they want there, so they are happy. it only takes me two seconds to convince them to try a coffee with figs, at the end, they are blown away and asking me why i don;t have a chain of coffee shops in the US.

So, SB success will quickly disappear as the smaller outfits give their customers a bit of excitement in a cup of coffee without falling into excess.

3- NOW, i would love to introduce what i consider the most important aspect of SB operation: the obscene profits they generate at the expense of the farmers of the world. IT IS EASY, do the math with me: they pay an average of $1.40 per pound of green coffee in Costa Rica. they lose 20% on the roasting but i figure they more than make it up by the blending process with low cost fillers. Anyway, the point is that once they use that pound of coffee as an ingredient in their coffee shops, then the income they generate borders $130. that is ten times over.

YES, i know Starbucks is not guilty of TRADE GENOCIDE, their prices are better than what people were getting 10 years ago when the markets were depressed but what bugs the hell out of me is that they portray themselves as the leaders of social responsiblity.

last week one of my clients sent me a link to an audio presentation that the VP for Social REsponsibility for SB made at Stanford. he got an standing ovation, and the forum that presented the audio recording was called SOCIAL INNOVATIONS. My god, what is going on here? who is better at SB, the marketing guy or the PR guy?

i mean, they have the media in their pockets, seems that they can't go wrong. and i wrote a note to SOCIAL INNOVATIONS which was never answered and when i showed the note to my friend who sent the link, he told me i was not going to get anywhere SOUNDING LIKE A MARXIST, so i guess SB is like teflon, nothing sticks to it.

To top this situation, SB buys exceptional coffee in our Region to sell as BLACK APRON SPECIALS and pay the mills about $1.80 per pound, which in the industry is very high. only that they charge $23 a pound for it, that is over 10 times more.

any of your have any comments on this? i drives me nuts to see that they get away with this PR game.

 

[Davec]

My only comment on the Starbucks thread.....the general coffee drinking public unfortunately get what they deserve in many cases. It's the same with food, cars... etc.. While people are willing to buy it and make no effort to inform themselves and change their buying habits....these chains selling coffee type drinks will continue to make big profits.

Put your average punter in the position of having to decide between their

20oz super skinny latte mocha crap coffee using some horrible badley roasted blensfor $2 and a

5 oz real latte with a bit of art on it for $2.50 using Yemen Mocha matari, or Ethiopian Harrar Longberry roasted less than a week ago etc.

They would choose the first bucket of slop, because it's just coffee isn't it?, don't all coffees taste the same. Oh and I get 20z for only 50c more.


Sad.....very sad, but it's the reason I don't buy coffee outside...unless I have to. If every body did the same, SB and chains like them would be either change, or go out of business.

P.S. I don't even MENTION, the mindless so called "Barista", who happily servers you a 6 second cremaless gusher, without a second thought!