Damn you, Starbucks!Follow

Okay, I'll say it.

I hate Starbucks.

No, it's not because they're an evil mega-corp trying to worm their way in everywhere and take advantage of third-world coffee farmers by paying them a pittance. I'm not that deep.

I just don't like their coffee. In my opinion, it's very bitter, as though they have burned, or at least over-roasted, their beans. If I want to spend $3 on an absurdly over-priced cuppa joe, I'll spend it someplace where I enjoy the aforementioned cuppa much more.

That place, for the last 8 years or so, has been Coffee People. Even when they changed hands a few years back and started using Deidrich beans, it was still damned good coffee, and they had snazzy slogans like "Good coffee, no backtalk." They also have nifty drive-thru locations called Motor-Moka and even kiosks at the Portland airport called Aero-Moka. And who doesn't love a company that sells a kind of coffee called Black Tiger, whose only difference from regular coffee is that it contains 25% more caffeine?

Alas, it's the end of an era. Last fall, Deidrich decided they wanted to focus on their beans business and get out of running actual shops, so they sold Coffee People. To Starbucks. Unfortunately, Starbucks in their infinite wisdom decided they could not do as they did when they bought Seattle's Best and keep the operation running as a separate entity from Starbucks. No, instead, they decided to shut down the Coffee People stores. Many of the "dine-in" coffee bar locations are already closed, and our nearest Motor-Moka closes tomorrow.

Dear Starbucks: Closing Coffee People will not make me any more inclined to drink Starbucks coffee. I would rather go without than drink something I don't like the taste of. By closing Coffee People, rather than allowing them to continue operating under your management, you have deprived yourself of the revenue you would have made from my corner of the economic globe. In closing, go f'uck yourself.

Luckily, the manager of one of the non-drive-thru coffee bar locations here in Beaverton bought his lease and will changing the store's name, but continuing to sell products made with the same Diedrich beans, so we have options when we really get our jones on. But this location is farther away than our usual stops, and isn't a Motor-Moka, which means we will be patronizing it much less. But at least we have options. Most of the other independently run drive-thru coffee places around here aren't all that tasty either (I think they use Panache coffee), so we really don't have many.

We need to ban coffee like we ban cigarettes just because it will pidd off tons of people that need to be pissed off, in exactly this sort of way. Provoke some hissy fits. Provide coffee links to terrorism and drugs. Associate coffee drinkers to pollution. Breed some eco warriors who tip peoples coffee over and spill it on their owners. I know it can be done.

I hate coffee. I'm a cold drink person. Ice water or iced tea for me. Bring on the war to end coffee!

Edit: I call for a $15 per cup tax on coffee to provide income and property tax relief across the board! Feel free to add more taxes at the State and local level.

Edited, Jan 30th 2007 3:54am by MonxDoT

I used to boycott starbucks, but unfortunately, I love their iced moccas, so i go there during the summer. I don't feel great about it, but "cafs" in England have ****-poor coffee, and no iced moccas.

It is sad that they are killing, deliberatly most of the time, small independent coffee shops. But, you can't blame them, they are only operating within the market laws, and doing a great job at it. If anything is wrong, it's not starbucks, but the laws that allow them to do that.

Starbucks is intresting though, because it was one of the first companies to really push the "targeted price" system, which basically makes people pay as much as they can for a coffee.

Coffee is one of the cheapest raw product in teh world, and will almost always be so since it is so easy to produce. It is the telemarketing of raw products, in a way. Prices will never go up, because someone will always be able to produce it for cheap.

So how come it ends up 7000 times more expensive just by crossing an ocean? And how come people buy it?

First because it's addictive.

Second, because of the way it is consumed. Most people will not want to add 5 minutes to their morning journey in order to save $1. Which means that location puts a huge premium on the price of coffee. A well places coffee shop (for exemple in the middle of a busy train station) can charge almost as much as it wants for a coffe, and always get clients. The further away the next coffee shop is, the more it *can*, and will, charge. This also means that rent rates for such places are extremely high, since the landlord knows that he can find another coffee branch that will be willing to pay loads of money for this location. High rents, because of high demand, means high coffee prices.

Price targetting, however, is even funnier.

It basically means trying to charge as much as the consumer is willing to pay. You can't charge rich people $4 for a coffee, and poor people $2. Not very practical.

What you can do, however, is add "supplements", that cost the company virtually nothing, and charge a relatively hefty sum for them. A "large" coffee, as opposed to a "small" one, costs the company *nothing*. It costs around 0.001 cents, for the extra water. And yet, they charge 50 cents for a bigger coffee. That's 50 cents of "pure" profits, since it costs them nothing more. It's exactly the same for these other ingredients, like syrup, or chocolate sprinkle, or even making it a "double".

That's where companies like Starbucks have been so clever, they understood these concepts very quickly. And they have a million supplements, so that your coffee will be as expensive as it can possibly be. A grande double moccha with cream and syrup will cost $2 more than a small black cofee with nothing, and yet for the company the costs are exactly the same.

It's very clever, and it's moving from coffee to many other things.

Edited, Jan 30th 2007 11:20am by RedPhoenixxx

I'm not a huge fan of Starbucks either. I will seek one out if I'm looking for a Chocamochacarmelmacciatolatte type of deal but an average cup o' coffee can be purchased from any number of "little guy" shops and probably be a lot better.

It bugs me to see a Starbucks everywhere I go. I'm not sure why.

Tim Hortons will always pwn Starbucks for coffee.

I do miss Tim Hortons.

I like my White Chocolate Mochas. Only other coffee place I know of in Miami is Dunken Donuts, which I'm not a fan off, really (unless I want a bagel!)

Besides, it's funny picking on the Starbucks people.

"What size?"
"Large."
"You mean Venti."
"That's what I said; large."

It's coffee. Let's not read to much into it.

Burnt coffee beens means burnt tasting coffee. Super if you are a bitter freak, bad if you are someone who just lost 50 lbs and doesn't want 5 packets of sugar in you coffee to make it potable.

This is the only reason I won't go to a starbucks. If you're going to sell coffee in a bilingual country, list the damn sizes in English or French. I don't care what the heck Venti is and I don't want to try to say it. It makes me feel stupid asking for something with a word that A. I don't understand B. Doesn't fit into my English sentence C. Just sounds wrong. I will go to second cup however, when I ask them for a large coffee I get a large coffee and their coffee is quite good. Usually it's country style, I'm not a big fan of Tim Hortons their double double is too creamy and I'm too lazy to say "2 sugar one cream".

Same thing with those goddamned Greek, Thai, etc restaurants.

It's not Saganaki, it's Flaming Cheese.
It's not Pad Se Ewe, it's Greasy Beef Noodles.

Jesus, when will these fuckers learn to word things the way *I* want them to?

(Oh and I <3 Tim Hortons)

Uhm yeah. Calling something by it's native name and listing a quantitative measurement in a different language are 2 completely different things. If it's a Greek dish by all means call it a greek name but tell me it's a large, not a greekwordforbiggerthandonkey.