Category: Coffee News

When I started getting into all things coffee – part of my research to open a coffee shop – I picked up a copy of “Pour Your Heart Into It” the story about how Starbucks started and written with Howard Schultz, the person who made Starbucks what it is. However, after reading about all the good ideas, like selling Italian style coffee to a largely un-educated American population about good coffee, which funnily enough Mr Schultz had a lot of problems trying to convince his management about – I was puzzled when I walked into a Starbucks in Atlanta (I was on holiday at the time) and found a huge disparity between what I had read and what I was being served. Just a few pointers: (i) in the book, it mentions that espresso has to served in a porcelain cup to preserve the heat and the taste, but when I went to a local Starbucks and ordered an espresso, I got the espresso served in a small paper cup – they still serve espresso in porcelain cups in Austria (see the pic) 

 

(ii) the idea of preparing espresso style coffee is mentioned a lot in the book where the baristi are trained for many hours on dosing, tamping etc, but in your local Starbucks, the barista just pushes a button – OK ! what’s going on here ? There were a few other discrepancies but I soon found out that the book I was reading was written about the beginning of Starbucks from early 1980’s until the mid 1990’s and that back then, I was reading the book in January 2006 – a 10 year gap.

So what happened to the passion of coffee that Starbucks re-invented for North America and parts of the World ? In summary, a lot but as they expanded, the passion suffered. OK ! there was huge success from a financial point of view – yes ! their stocks went way of the scale as well as profits, shop openings and brand recognition, BUT there was a price – quality and romance – the very first ideas that made Starbucks what is was. Anyway, I’m not going to write a whole blog about dissecting what went wrong or right depending from your point of view, but all I can say is that things are expected to change, with the re-appointment of Howard Schultz as CEO of Starbucks (he was previously Chairman of the Board). There’s been a lot of media coverage since mid-2007 when a memo was leaked from Starbucks about the “wrong” sort of changes. In addition, there was a drop in the share price and the first ever fall in sales, culminating with the sacking of their CEO, replaced by Schultz.

Now ! Starbucks are trying to “re-invent” themselves again – trying to go back to the original quality ways but trying to take into account the change in environment – I mean now, there are so many Starbucks imitations, as well as cafes that have sub-consciously and blatantly modelled themselves on Starbucks with dim light, brown and green interiors, carpets, etc, who attract customers that want that “away from home but home environment feel”.  However, although an estimated 45 million people buy something from Starbucks every week (now, that’s a lot of people) – they have lost a lot of customers, firstly the ones who grew to love coffee from Starbucks and then felt betrayed and started their own cafes or bought their own coffee machines and don’t even dream of drinking coffee outside anymore (sounds like me) and those who just went with the culture thing but once they have found something that tasted like Starbucks and was a lot cheaper, they left for other chains. Regarding the last point, it still shocks me how much Starbucks charge for coffee outside USA – it ain’t cheap in Europe and especially in London. 

Anway back to what they plan to do. For me, I am looking forward to what they intend to re-launch, especially with (i) grinding beans fresh in the store, and my most anticipated move (ii) preparing coffee the manual way. The whole idea is to bring back the “romance” of coffee – the smell, the preparation and the serving. They’ve also launched an interactive “ideas” forum website on www.mystarbucksidea.com. I wish them luck. For further reading, goggle Starbucks and check the Newsweek article of 21 April 2008.

Not sure if you have been reading the newspapers recently, but it looks like we are about to enter another evolution in coffee drinking. News journals from your local paper to international magazines like the Economist have been featuring articles on the fall of Starbucks and the entry of McDonalds into the coffee shop market.

Apparently, there was a study done last year in the US and more people preferred coffee made by McDonalds to that from Starbucks – Ouch ! True, we are not talking about the stuff we have been getting at McDees for years as McDonalds have invested in buying higher quality coffee beans and equipment and so have upped the competition a bit. McDonalds plan to roll out more cafes over the next few months whilst Starbucks struggles to get back its reputation. In any case, there appears to be a battle on the cards and to avoid getting sued by the big boys, I’ll keep this post brief and encourage you to experiment with which coffee you prefer if you have the time and money of course. As soon as I get some big bucks to pay big lawyers’ fees, perhaps we can run our own poll next year on who is best. In any case, I think it’s positive, as it is giving way to more publicity about the quality of coffee – something I’m really trying to push for.

For more reading, check out www.economist.com and use their search engine for Starbucks.

Did you hear the one about “coffee protects female memory” ? I guess you’re thinking OK ! this guy is really on a different planet, but no ! it’s true. French researchers at the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research conducted a study over 4 years using about 7,000 women aged 65 years and over and noticed that those who drank more than 3 cups of coffee per day as opposed to those who only drank 1 cup of coffee per day showed less decline in memory tests. Apparently, caffeine is a known psycho-stimulant (i.e it stimulates the mind and hence memory) however, no one knows why it does not have the same effect on men – one theory is that caffeine affects women more than men – so sorry guys, perhaps you’ve got to drink a lot more to remember stuff, just kidding – I don’t want to be sued. In any case, as with all research of this nature, don’t go rushing to conclusions like trying to give women less coffee so they don’t remember stuff like wedding anniversaries, birthdays, etc – it’s not going to work. Nevertheless, the study does show that caffeine might slow down dementia, but a longer study is needed before caffeine is prescribed for things like Alzheimer disease. For more reading, consult the BBC News Website.