Their coffee is gross and overpriced. It's been a long time coming.
this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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I'm lucky enough to be in an area with a ton of local coffee roasters, so I'm never that far from a good cup. But even before coffee became an addiction for me, I didn't like Starbucks coffee. The plain coffee is too burned and doesn't taste good, and the mixed coffee drinks are too sweetened to cover up the burned flavor of the coffee. These days if I can't get to a local coffee place, I'll just go to an AM/PM or 7-11 as they'll have better coffee than Starbucks.
Imagine the room when this was the big idea. "Let's burn the shit outta those beans!"
It makes grim sense from a business perspective. All coffee has a unique flavor, but all burned coffee tastes the same. Burning all the coffee ensures a similar flavor profile at any Starbucks in the US. The fact that the flavor is bad is entirely beside the point.
I'm not Starbucks biggest fan, but they do have the model nailed down. It's consistent coffee, they generally have a drive-through, and it's one of the few places that's open outside of business hours.
However, the coffee isn't that special, and I was actually borderline speechless when two large coffees came to £10.10 recently.
I can put up with one or the other, but not both. I don't mind paying over the odds for good coffee, and I don't mind paying under the odds for caffeinated tar - but fuck paying over a fiver a pop for "normal" coffee.
Their blonde Nespresso pods cost under a tenner for 40 capsules or so and they're just as nice.
The biggest thing I appreciate about Starbucks is the app. I can order, go in, and grab my cup and go. This is enormously important in the morning when I NEED to get to work. With the “local” shops you need to wait an arbitrary amount of time depending on how long the line is and what those people might order. Also, I don’t have to deal with the FUCKING iPad swivel. Sorry “local” coffee shops, but until you stop condoning begging from your customers I will generally avoid, even if your coffee is better.
Don’t agree? That’s fine. I do what works for me. You do what works for you.
Have these consumer facing companies done anything to convince the governments of the world to lower the wealth gap? Have a maximum wage? End the housing crisis? Increase disposable income? Reverse inflation?
No, they're in fact pushing most of these problems with their greed - problems that leave people choosing between groceries and transporting or coffee.
This is how Capitalism destroys Capitalism. You want to minimize people down to food consuming drones - well good bye to everything outside of that.
Either companies get on the side of consumer level people, or they don't have customers... And guess what, that includes being on the side of all their low level workers who they're currently under paying too.
For like 3-4 cups of prepared Starbucks coffee, I can get 2.5 lbs of whole bean coffee from Costco and get somewhere around 70 cups from it.
Or people can't afford luxury items. A casualty of destroying the middle class.
I got sick and tired of coffee, coffee chains and over priced drinks.
I didn't want caffeine any more ... didn't want sugar ... didn't want weird flavor enhancers ... fruit juice is too processed ...
So now I just drink water
If I do buy coffee from these places ... I order espresso ... half the time none of young workers know how to serve it and just give me a cup of espresso... or if I do get an ounce cup, I get my caffeine fix for about a couple of dollars and I go back to drinking water.
Starbucks is largely yucky. I like one seasonal drink there, but it's basically just a milkshake with espresso in it... And I now go to a place that makes that better, now I think about it.
They have decent breakfast options, though.