Why I don't drink coffee at Starbucks.
"…single-handedly responsible for everything that’s wrong with coffee: From inventing stupid faux-Italian drink names, to ruining whole neighborhoods by forcing out small, artisan coffee shops."
—Coffee Chronicler
I know I'm going to upset some folk with this opinion, but it's for your own good that you know why I loathe Starbucks. It's not just on ethical or political grounds, it's not ven just that their shops are awful places, but on the basis that their coffee is mediocre at best. I truly hate the brand. It's not just the yuppy image, not just that one has to learn a new fucking language to order a drink there (i mean, what the fuck is a Grande, anyway?), it's not even that their coffee isn't even good, it's that they have changed the whole image of what coffee is, rendering countless millions unable to enjoy real coffee.
Now I will admit to being a coffee snob and even on rare occasions, a judgemental and opinionated arse, but I feel I owe you some explanation as to why I don't drink there and why I think you shouldn't either. I should add that this critical opinion is not just levelled at Starbuck's, but at any coffee chain who muddles the nature of coffee drinks. Nowadays I include Peets in this group of places that I will not go if I want to have a really good coffee experience. It's no co-incidence that Alfred Peet was instrumental in helping set up he Starbuck's company, damn his eyes.
My first experience with this god-awful chain was many, many years ago in Nottingham. I had discovered three really excellent cafés in town, one a vegan place that also served excellent foods baked in-house, one attached to a tiny real Italian deli run by a real Italian family, both with real espresso machines, both using fresh, locally-roasted beans. There had been a third, a little hole-in-the wall place that served espresso and nothing else. I understand that for their regulars they would make a morning cappuccino, but woe betide anyone who asked for a drip or "Americano". You ordered your coffee, you paid, you collected and you drank it from an actual fucking cup, right there in the café. You might ( I did) exchange pleasantries with the baristsa, owner or one of the other customers. Then you left, sated after the delicious and smooth brew. Of course, after Starbucks opened a hundred yards away, they were doomed.
To continue the tale, one day I'd arranged to meet a noder friend (possibly Frankie) coming in on the train, and they'd asked where the good coffee was. I mentioned my favourite places, but they were out of the city centre and my suggestions were rejected. "Any other coffee shops?" I was asked. "Well there is a Starbucks, ten minutes from the station, but I can't vouch for it". The response? "Perfect, meet you there at X o'clock!." I arrived a few minutes beforehand to check it out, ordered a cappuccino and sat down to enjoy it. By the time my friend (I think Frankie) had arrived, my drink was returned and my money refunded. I was outside ordering a taxi so I could wash the burnt and oily taste from my mouth with a good cup elsewhere. It had been truly vile, and exacerbated by the fact that it had been served in a bloody paper cup. We zoomed off in the cab the mile or so to the vegan place which met with everyone's approval.
Of course she raised the question about why I'd changed the plan and I duly explained. Apparently she thought Starbucks was good coffee. Clearly her tastebuds had been so befouled that she no longer knew the difference between even okay and bad coffee. Brainwashed by the marketeers into believing that ordering her awful "tall" or "Vingte" latte was the height of sophistication, she'd fallen prey to the fallacy that fancier names mean a better product. It turns out that she normally dank one of their flavoured concoctions, spiked with some flavoured syrup to conceal the awful, cheap, over-roasted filth that was the espresso shot. This was just before the fateful trip to Hungary that put the final hone on my appreciation for coffee, but even so, I'd already been spoiled, just in a different direction to her.
WHen in Hungary (and subsequently Italy and Croatia) I don't believe I saw a single Starbucks shop, but there was an excellent local café on seemingly every corner Heck, even in the village I was staying there was a little café attached to one of the houses (this in in the centre of a village with a pupulation of 4,000 people). I came back spoiled, learned how to make good coffee at home and never looked back.
It was many years later during a layover in an airport en route to Sacramento that I once again had to deal wih Starbucks, the only coffee available at this particular airport. Once again it was swill, and only became palatable with the addition of copious amounts of sugar-syrup and additional cream. That has to be fifteen years ago, and Never Again will I darken their doorstep. There's a Starbucks here in town, of course, and I have never once been tempted to go in.
Their marketing people have heard many others criticising the brand and have responded with talk of how they choose and roast their coffees, even going as far as to introduce a "single-origin blonde roast", and it was in researching that that I stumbled across the article quoted above. The truth is, Starbucks do not buy the best beans from the best sources. They are paying commodity prices, so they are not getting the best beans, and they certainly are not buying from from the source or even a co-operative. They roast too dark for many tastes and probably, based on my experience, never clean their espresso machines thoroughly enough. They've tried hard to appear to be a part of the "third wave" of coffee, but they have failed miserably. They don't even market "coffee", they market coffee drinks, gussied up puddings-in-a-cup loaded with sugar and flavoured syrups, mutton dressed as lamb. In addition, as an espresso drinker, I also totally hate the marketeers that came up with the drink that misleads many other baristas into making a wholly unacceptable drink whenever I ask for a caffe macchiato. Fuck that noise, now I have to explain exactly how to make one whenever I want one.
I recently had occasion to make a coffee for a visitor (Moka faux cappuccino) and was delighted to hear that it was so much better than he'd been used to from Starbollocks. I hope I have made another convert. If all you've ever had recently is Starbucks, please do yourself a favour and stray to a local café, preferably one where they roast their own beans (or at least buy local roasts). Order a proper coffee in a nice place,s it down, taste and see. With Starbucks it's go in, buy your coffee drink in a paper cup, drink it in the car. That's not how to enjoy real coffee. Chat with the barista or sit, enjoy, and savour every sip. Above all, get a regular espresso drink. Can you really say you enjoy coffee if it's dolled up in flavoured frills and furbelows?
svntax says Thank *you* for coffee snobbing, it is much appreciated :D
[xclip -o | wc -w
1242