I wondered mid-article if it was partially AI generated, and to the article's point, if it was serious.
On the overarching question, standard coffee in the US was mostly weak drip and unsophisticated instant stuff, and I don't think most took coffee "seriously". Kids drinking it from teacher's room or not.
Starbucks and others gave it a more hip position with more variety and consideration, while still being something considerably different from "serious" coffee made by small independant shops for instance.
And now the author's complaining that coffee's image has changed again because Starbucks isn't the miracle company anymore. Does it matter much?
If anything the coffee culture that grew in parallel to these Pumpking Spice days is probably there to stay and "serious" coffee is probably stronger than it ever was considering the starting point.
I'm waiting for the next analysis on how the toast culture lost its lusture as avocado toasts are on the fall.
Interesting point, one could point to Starbucks and other coffee chains as the gateway drug, lowering the barrier to entry for somebody to get "into" coffee while setting a bar considerably higher than burnt diner coffee.
...While still delivering their own flavor of burnt junk, relative to the multitudes of third wave shops that have grown and thrived out of the category that Starbucks created.
So yes, the current version of Starbucks may be ridiculous, but the culture wave it led is a key reason every town or block is able to sustain a passionate small cafe or roastery.
As an Italian, I've tried Starbucks once in my life as soon as I came to live in Berlin many years ago.
I don't get all the hype and the following that the brand has, since the coffee tastes as muddy water and the cappuccino is just milk with some droplets of coffee in it. Obviously the price is exaggerated.
What impresses me is that now Starbucks is opening in many cities in Italy and it gets more followers/adopters.
If you really want a good coffee, just go to any bar/café which isn't branded (Starbucks, Einstein, whatever). Their coffee will taste much better and at a cheaper price.
I'm not even Italian, but the (partially) fake Italian size names at Starbucks are enough to turn me off of that vendor of pretentious sugar drinks.
Is their straight coffee actually bad these days? I've read that it used to be good. Heck, McD's coffee in Germany was actually good... initially, 10+ years ago. Not anymore.
The exact opposite actually starbucks and others that are similar are for people who aren't stuck up and have things to get done so they need something quick since they didn't have time to make it at home.
Coffee is for caffeine to get work done, to me an iced latte or ice coffee from Starbucks tastes just fine compared some $10 latte at some over hyped coffee shop.
Corona and lime is good also not sure why people hate on it. No one cares how cool the craft beer drinkers think they are.
You get that kind of people with anything really: bread, wine, cheeses, chocolate and food in general.
There are those who care about the quality, craftsmanship and taste, since they can enjoy it, and then those who just see those as a good way to get something specific (booze, calories, umami, etc.)
To be totally honest, the ones who care are the people who, whether people like it or not, want the product to be at its best form and shape.
Starbucks' emergence as a dominant force in the coffee industry marked the beginning of the second wave of coffee, which transformed coffee from a mere commodity into an artisanal experience. This wave, which began in the latter part of the 20th century, saw Starbucks not only popularizing darker roasts and Italian-inspired espresso drinks but also creating a 'third place' between work and home where people could relax and socialize. The brand's success was built on the idea that coffee could be both a luxury and a part of daily life, a concept that resonated with consumers and led to a significant increase in the price per cup. Starbucks' emphasis on the experience, rather than just the coffee, helped to elevate the status of their brand, making the act of holding a Starbucks cup a statement of sophistication and belonging to a certain lifestyle. This shift in perception was instrumental in changing the way coffee was consumed and perceived worldwide, setting the stage for the third wave of coffee, which focuses even more on the quality and sourcing of coffee beans. I attirbute the loss of revenue for Starbucks as not one of stupid marketing or ridiculous new products as stated in the article but of protest!
"But so much is image-driven in our influencer culture nowadays, and so little is substance."
Fun fact: it even applies to horticulture.
Ever been to a garden center, and seen those nice looking, bushy coffee plants? Shiny leaves, a label saying "Coffea Arabica" and all?
Well... they're not. More exactly: those "plants" are "bushes of plants", each fighting for survival against their bros & sistas 1/2 cm. next to them.
When these are grown, 6 to 10..12 (yes, coffee) beans are planted in the same pot. A single coffee plant looks rather thin & uninteresting. And that single specimen could be too likely to not survive (for growers / garden center's taste). So what to do? Put a bunch of 'em in the same pot, nice & bushy, buyers will like that look.
Never mind that's not how a young Coffea Arabica looks like. Or that an image search online will mostly turn up those distorted-reality groups-of-Coffea in a tiny pot. Or that most coffee plants are in fact, large bushes (like 1.5~2m tall for easy harvesting, much taller if left to grow unimpeded).
For the record: I don't mind the Coffea-as-fashion-item aspect. Or that you get ~10 plants for the price of 1. But I do mind the distort reality, "what is it what you're selling?" aspect. I have yet to see a label on one of these pots explain there's a number of Coffea's in there rather than just 1.
As the article says: this is all too common nowadays. It's almost as if [what's underneath] is irrelevant.
>I do mind the distort reality, "what is it what you're selling?" aspect. I have yet to see a label on one of these pots explain there's a number of Coffea's in there rather than just 1
What was misrepresented? Are they are claiming there is only one plant in the pot?
Maybe it’s just me, but I wouldn’t consider it misleading if I bought a potted plant and it turned out that the seller had actually planted a handful of plants (of the type I bought) in the pot, instead of just one.
There was one coffee chain in the UK which used to sell good enough coffee up to about 2 or 3 years ago. Then one day it was horrible, at every shop. I suspect they decided that so many had drinks where the coffee could hardly be tasted that they may as well give up on good beans.
I tend to agree, and you can kind of see the creep of “seriousness” increase over the years in popular media (characterized by dark/edgy/gritty/“realistic” tones), with the Nolan Batman films being something of an inflection point.
Compare the TV and movies from the past 15 or so years to that of the mid-late 90s and early 00s and there’s a stark contrast, with the older media having more of a tendency toward being colorful, optimistic, positive, fun, silly, campy, etc.
Eh, I'm pretty sure the author is arguing about "seriousness" in a "professional" sense as opposed to a "large consequence" sense.
I think the proliferation of "large consequence" has to do with lazy writing and if you have a bunch of people "save the world" now they need to one-up it so it becomes "save the star system". So when you have a ton of sequels being produced they need to keep getting larger and larger consequences for the plot line.
However, on the lack of "professionalism" I think the author is spot on. Their initial example is that "Pumpkin Spice" contains no Pumpkin. Saying you're doing X while you'r e not doing X is very unprofessional (unserious).
Interestingly enough, what survives as pumpkin spice today used to be an incredibly popular spice mix - powder douce - going back to the Middle Ages, and used on everything from apple pie, to roast meat, to wine.
Mulled wine is basically pumpkin spice wine.
> How can you lose when you’re selling an addictive substance? Even the most brain-cell-deprived stoner in your high school class eventually figured out how to deal.
Unlike other addictive drugs, selling coffee is not at all regulated, let alone a crime. So the competition to sell you some is incredible fierce.
> Alas, I fear that this Starbucks fiasco is emblematic of a deeper malaise. There’s a shortage of seriousness everywhere in society now. […] So much is image-driven in our influencer culture nowadays, and so little is substance. Sometimes it feels like the whole country is slurping Frappucinos® in Barbieland.
There’s nothing that bothers me more than this sort of cultural critique about X vague value that doesn’t have much meaning in and of itself. They give me an immediate knee-jerk reaction, since they’re usually pretty meaningless. Things need to be more “serious?” What?
And since the birth of pop-culture, it’s always been a bit shallow, image-driven, and insusbtantial – that’s not new to this generation, or even the one before that.
You know what this is? Just another example of enshittification, specifically the attempt to create some sort of proprietary thing that customers get locked into, in this case branded drinks. Same story as Coke vs Pepsi: even though the recipes are almost exactly the same, people get locked into a particular preference for a particular branded drink with its slight variation in taste.
Companies want monopolies. Pure coffee is not a monopoly. Anyone can acquire a storefront and beans and make a coffee. But not everyone can make a Frappuccino(c). Starbucks wants to make a market in copyrighted specialty beverages that no other business can reproduce.
The same thing is happening with Nestle’s Vertuo product line. They lost the patent stranglehold on the original line so now other business can sell compatible pods. They’re like a printer company that lost their proprietary ink business. So they’re trying to create a new line of products where they have complete patent coverage — this is the Vertuo line. The Vertuo is a weird drink, in my opinion much worse than the original line. But Nestle is pushing it hard because if they can convert a customer to Vertuo, no one else can sell to them.
A key aspect that you didn't mention is consistency. This is what explains the behavior of both sides. Customers generally know that Starbucks is not the best coffee you can get, but they don't have to be the best.
Just like any chain, Starbucks primarily sells consistency. Consumers are risk-averse and going to a random shop to buy a coffee is a risk. It might be excellent but it might also be terrible. With Starbucks, you generally know what you're going to get and even though it's average, it's generally not terrible/un-drinkable so it's the safe choice.
Eh, while I have no special insight into why Starbucks might have had a poor quarter, none of this (in TFA) is new.
As a moderate 'coffee person', Starbucks has always been somewhere between convenience and last resort. It has always sold an image, rather than an excellent product. Its practice of widening its offerings with weird and wonderful concoctions that bear little resemblance to coffee itself has been around as long as I can remember Starbucks existing as a presence in the high street. And frankly, I'm minded to be more forgiving of the derided 'Oleato' drinks - at least they're coffee-focussed, and novel enough to be interesting.
Also, the headline of the article is flat wrong: while lots of people aren't serious about coffee, it's possible to be more serious about coffee than ever before - very serious indeed.
If you want really good coffee in a reasonably-sized city, don't go to a chain. (Although I think most people that care, knew this already.). Instead, download one of the various coffee-shop-listing-and-reviewing apps out there, or alternatively (in a pinch) add the phrase "third wave" to your search on Google Maps - it's not guaranteed, but is usually a good starting point.
On the overarching question, standard coffee in the US was mostly weak drip and unsophisticated instant stuff, and I don't think most took coffee "seriously". Kids drinking it from teacher's room or not.
Starbucks and others gave it a more hip position with more variety and consideration, while still being something considerably different from "serious" coffee made by small independant shops for instance.
And now the author's complaining that coffee's image has changed again because Starbucks isn't the miracle company anymore. Does it matter much?
If anything the coffee culture that grew in parallel to these Pumpking Spice days is probably there to stay and "serious" coffee is probably stronger than it ever was considering the starting point.
I'm waiting for the next analysis on how the toast culture lost its lusture as avocado toasts are on the fall.