Boutique coffee is all about nuance- it's like Scotch, or bourbon, or tobacco. You get this particular sack of beans from this tiny coffee producer in the middle of nowhere and you've roasted 5lbs of it just so and you then grind it just so and you then prepare it just so with an exacting process and carefully controlling your variables of time of extraction and water temp.
Starbucks cannot and does possess the ability to harness that subtlety because they operate on a huge scale. They roast their beans to burnt in order to drive out the differences between beans sourced at different plantations because they have to offer a homogenized product across all of their stores and all of their retail offerings. Every cup of coffee at every Starbucks across the entire world has to taste exactly the same because that's what customers expect[0].
If I want nuance I go to a local coffee roaster and ask the owner what's good that day. If I just want a caffeine fix I can go to Starbucks or, better yet, just drink the crappy stuff at work that's free and load up on the sugar and cream.
I don't go to a college rager and expect to find Springbank (fancy single-source Scotch); I go and expect to find Natty Light and Yuengling and, in fact, I expect those offerings because I'm not going to stand around and compare tasting notes, I'm going to get drunk and have a good time. Similarly, I go to Starbucks as a mid-morning break at work so I can have an excuse to get up and walk around and get something caffeinated I can sip at my desk while doing other things; I'm not expecting the coffee experience nor do I want it, I just want to get my buzz on and go about my day.
Additionally I think this move by Starbucks is putting even more pressure on small boutique coffee shops and potentially marginalizing them even further because now casual consumers can just go to Starbucks and get what they think is a "boutique experience" when, in fact, their money and their time would be better spent going to the actual boutique coffee shop (Edit- amyjess pointed out that this is NOT the case! http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_m...). Not to mention a potential ripple effect in coffee pricing where Starbucks could be able to strong-arm the market and drive small specialty coffee growers out of business like Wal-Mart and the enormous pickle jar[1].
> Additionally I think this move by Starbucks is putting even more pressure on small boutique coffee shops and potentially marginalizing them even further because now casual consumers can just go to Starbucks and get what they think is a "boutique experience" when, in fact, their money and their time would be better spent going to the actual boutique coffee shop.
Turns out that the presence of a Starbucks ends up evangelizing the public on coffee, converting non-coffee drinkers into coffee drinkers and making people more likely to seek coffee from all sources. And they will: as soon as the local Starbucks gets too crowded for comfort, people will move to another coffee shop so they don't have to wait on line.
| Boutique coffee is all about nuance- it's like Scotch, or bourbon, or tobacco.
For the record, bourbon (and I assume Scotch, but Im much less familiar with it) is about as industrial as you get. The labels might have pictures of old men and occasional far fetched stories, but 99% of the bourbon on shelves is made in giant industrial plants.
In a lot of ways its a lot like Starbucks. They have beans from various places, sell a story about shade grown artisanally produced, etc. At the end of the day, both bourbon producers and Starbucks probably strike an economic sweet spot with regards to nuance and scale.
For their normal coffee I totally agree, but have you tried one of their Reserve coffees on the Clover machine mentioned in the article? As far as I know it tunes its brewing parameters to each individual type of bean and it's consistently the best coffee I've had besides what I can make on my own.
I haven't, actually, because I assumed it was just a gimmick. And honestly, it IS a gimmick, allowing Starbucks to offer fancy "boutique" coffee at multiple locations at the press of a button instead of emphasizing barista training and artistry.
I am completely happy to be a Luddite for this particular subject because to me part of what I want from boutique coffee is the expierence. I want some bearded hipster dude who has spent the last decade of his life perfecting his craft to work in conjunction with a tattooed college drop-out who has two decades of roasting experience to craft me a cup of coffee that has never been and will never be seen again on this earth because of infinite subtle variations in the exact beans that were used in making it. I consider making amazing coffee to be an art form, same as making amazing French Pâtisserie or Jamón Ibérico[1] or Colonnata lardo[2]. Starbucks offering boutique coffee to me is like Target saying they now are carrying Ibérico ham- it might be made out of pig and it might be cured in the same fashion but it is not, cannot, and will not ever be Jamón Ibérico and calling it such not only cheapens the entire concept of artistry in making Jamón Ibérico but also misleads the thousands of consumers who might buy it, decide it's not that good, and then completely write off Jamón Ibérico for the rest of their lives, thus missing out on something incredible that many generations have toiled away at perfecting.
Agreed. I really love coffee and the Starbucks Ethiopian Yirgacheffe made on the clover is one of the best cups of coffee I've ever had.
It consistently out-performs all the other extremely high end coffee houses I have been to. There is an Intelligentsia in my neighborhood where several of the baristas have coffee beans tattooed on their arms and hands as a symbol of their dedication to the craft, yet they cannot produce a better cup of coffee made by this machine at than the "McDonalds" of coffee houses. Pretty surprising.
Or it could just be a kind of placebo effect that doesn't stand up to double blind testing, and the function of coffee pickiness has more to do with social signaling than flavor.
There are subtle strokes that are off the chart of what I'd say "an average consumer" might find or look for that are _easily_ identifiable with a small amount of training and effort (I've identified roast or lot changes from my go-to roaster without any prompting or hints from them). I think Starbucks (outside of their Starbucks Reserve store in Seattle) really isn't looking to serve that market -- they're really most middle-of-the-road. In fact, Starbucks is probably getting by on a lot of signalling in that less subtle space.
Same can be said about wine, micro brews, etc and is applicable only to your avg consumer. Those really invested in great coffee can dial things down to the region the bean was grown in.
Starbucks cannot and does possess the ability to harness that subtlety because they operate on a huge scale. They roast their beans to burnt in order to drive out the differences between beans sourced at different plantations because they have to offer a homogenized product across all of their stores and all of their retail offerings. Every cup of coffee at every Starbucks across the entire world has to taste exactly the same because that's what customers expect[0].
If I want nuance I go to a local coffee roaster and ask the owner what's good that day. If I just want a caffeine fix I can go to Starbucks or, better yet, just drink the crappy stuff at work that's free and load up on the sugar and cream.
I don't go to a college rager and expect to find Springbank (fancy single-source Scotch); I go and expect to find Natty Light and Yuengling and, in fact, I expect those offerings because I'm not going to stand around and compare tasting notes, I'm going to get drunk and have a good time. Similarly, I go to Starbucks as a mid-morning break at work so I can have an excuse to get up and walk around and get something caffeinated I can sip at my desk while doing other things; I'm not expecting the coffee experience nor do I want it, I just want to get my buzz on and go about my day.
Additionally I think this move by Starbucks is putting even more pressure on small boutique coffee shops and potentially marginalizing them even further because now casual consumers can just go to Starbucks and get what they think is a "boutique experience" when, in fact, their money and their time would be better spent going to the actual boutique coffee shop (Edit- amyjess pointed out that this is NOT the case! http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_m...). Not to mention a potential ripple effect in coffee pricing where Starbucks could be able to strong-arm the market and drive small specialty coffee growers out of business like Wal-Mart and the enormous pickle jar[1].
[0]https://www.reddit.com/r/Coffee/comments/119vnt/question_reg... [1]http://www.fastcompany.com/47593/wal-mart-you-dont-know