6 ms·

Why Starbucks makes burnt coffee

12 points by denysonique 4y ago

brucethemoose2 4y ago
Bingo. Not all of the beans they sell in grocery stores are so bad (though admitedly many of them are... looking at you French Roast and Winter Blend).
- pylua 4y ago
  Funny… they are really bad, I agree . However , I accidentally let a bag sit out for maybe half a year , and surprisingly it tasted so much better after that. Not sure as to why .
PaulHoule 4y ago
Back in the 1990s there were decent Espresso bars in any small city in a flyover state but you could not buy a good cup of coffee in Manhattan because every block had three Startbucks because they figured stock market analysts would assume that there were just as many Starbucks on every mile coast to coast.
scubbo 4y ago
> The light bulb went off: I knew the answer. They don’t want you to buy a shot of espresso. Espresso is not as profitable as espresso drinks. The only way to push espresso drinks with fancy syrups and names is to make sure as a stand alone, the coffee tastes like someone scrapped the burnt bits of toast into your mouth. Eh. I'm all for assuming the worst intentions of corporations at all times - but a much more reasonable assumption to my mind (which doesn't assume direct malice, but rather an understanding of the desires of their customers) is "they know that the vast majority of their target demographic will be ordering 'mixed drinks' anyway, and so there's no advantage to them in 'roasting properly' when the nuance will be lost anyway" That is - I believe that the author has the order of causation wrong. I don't believe that Starbucks' decisions lead people into drinking Espresso, but rather than Espresso is a specific drink with a specific consumption environment (at leisure, while seated, probably after or alongside a meal) which has no intersection with the consumption environments of customers who are likely to "drop into" a Starbucks. Imagine ordering an Espresso to-go from a drive-thru window!?
- brailsafe 4y ago
  I tried to order an espresso to go when I was visiting the states recently, and the person running the place had literally no idea what I was talking about.
  - Tagbert 4y ago
    While American McDonalds do serve coffee, they likely don’t serve expresso. Any functional coffee shop in the US will be quite familiar with espresso.
    - gruez 4y ago
      >While American McDonalds do serve coffee, they likely don’t serve expresso. They should. I just checked the online menu and they have americano and various other espresso based drinks, but not espresso specifically. That said if you go in person you should be able to get an espresso buy telling them to make an americano without the water.
      - wpm 4y ago
        I used to start my opening shifts (4AM) with 3 shots straight from the same or similar machines they have now, so it’s 100% possible.
    - brailsafe 4y ago
      It was one of those roadside places with a giant "Espresso" sign or whatever. I just get regular crap coffee at McD
  - seanhunter 4y ago
    I once asked a barista how to order an espresso to go in Venice (in Italian). He got me to repeat the phrase several times[1], then (to the amusement of everyone) told me "No". He wouldn't give me an espresso to go, he'd give me an espresso I could drink right there at the bar and then go. [1] Un espresso doppio della portata via
cheeselip420 4y ago
It's more about the fact that Starbucks uses fully automatic machines and less-skilled baristas to pull shots. With a super dark coffee, you can get consistent results (consistently bad IMO). If they went for lighter roasts, there would be enormous variability day-to-day which is likely not a great experience for customers who do like a good juicy light-roast espresso.
- relbeek2 4y ago
  It’s more likely the configuration of the automatic machine not the machine itself.
muzz 4y ago
Not sure if the economics of it are as simple as the author suggests. Espresso-based drinks take time to prepare, and while people are willing to wait, there is still a limited number of them that can be made per unit of time. On the other hand the number of drip coffees that can be produced per hour is much much higher, so even if the absolute profit per drink is lower they could easily sell more of them.
swatcoder 4y ago
The flavor is just a brand signature. It’s a savvy one for a (inter)national brand because it lets them mask inconsistency, and a savvy one when selling lots of latte-like drinks because it lets their signature carry through to those as well. No, it’s not subtle and delicate and classy, but those characteristics run counter to the McDonald’s-scale business that Starbuck’s pursued. They needed varying inputs to all taste roughly the same, in some menu of products that remixed a small core repertoire of ingredients in different ways. Subway sandwiches taste different and more bland than the ones from your local butcher counter because Subway needs to make a billion sandwiches that all taste similarly bland every day, every where, forever. Starbucks faces the same calculus. It’s nearly a 100 year old business model, it’s exhaustively documented, and it seems to work. If you don’t enjoy their flavor, you don’t need to. But neither convoluted personal theories nor taste snobbery aren’t necessary.
specialist 4y ago
My faves are (were) the earthiest beans with the darkest roast: sidamo, harrar, sumatra. If you don't like their dark roast, maybe choose one of the "blond" roasts, like Veranda. Or pick a Central American varietal, like Guatemala. Back in the day, Panama was the coffee snob's #1 pick. Medium roast Pike Place Blend is okay. I recall liking the Christmas blend. Just from their web page, looks like they now sell fewer varietals. Oh well. I guess it was inevitable. https://www.starbucks.com/menu/at-home-coffee/whole-bean https://www.starbucks.com/menu/at-home-coffee/whole-bean Makes sense though. Supply and logistics for niche beans is challenging at their volume. Small roasters (Herkimer, Lighthouse, etc, etc) can pick the best 500 lbs of beans and roast them to perfection. Whereas Starbucks buys millions of pounds, of varying quality, and tries to get all the batches to taste about the same. That's why they have blends and roast darker. Sure, hiding in those million of pounds are some amazing beans. But they all go into the machine just the same.
zoomablemind 4y ago
Unconvinced. It's more of a hypothesis that SB does not want ppl to buy espresso shots (which in fact is on the menu). They will get you on pastry anyway. I'd rather agree on this with the SB manager's rationale, that the blend/roast is tuned for the milk-based drinks, indeed, which are priced higher. From my own experiences, the baristas are often taught to put two shots into tall lattes, otherwise the clients complain of too milkiness. I won't drink that much of caffeine out of simple physiological concerns but completely understand the flavor expectations. As for the espressos, the coffee habits in the US are very particular, filtered and drip coffee largely rules, now with additional variety of "geeky" brew and drip with tons of bean blends to choose from. And, yes, let's not forget the expectations about the volume - it has to last through a meeting :) SB blend seems to serve to tastes equally in drip or blended with milk. Simplifies the logistics. For everybody else, try the Reserve. By the way, SB espresso is not too bad, goes well with vanilla ice-cream! Though my preference with SB is the hot chocolate, most other places care little about the good cocoa.
- relbeek2 4y ago
  Just a comment on shot count. Latte’s are an exception where a tall only gets 1 shot.
jnwatson 4y ago
Another conjecture: overroasting the beans concentrates the caffeine. Their tall (12 oz.) drip has an amazing 260 mg of caffeine. That's about double a typical cup of coffee.
- eurasiantiger 4y ago
  Not only that: overroasting shifts the beta-carboline profile more towards MAO-A inhibitors from MAO-B inhibitors. That can alter personality and cause impulsive behavior, such as impulse purchases. THAT is why they are burning their coffee.
  - brianmcc 4y ago
    Really..?
    - eurasiantiger 4y ago
      Yes, really. In fact, both over- and underactivity of MAO enzymes are linked to impulsive behavior. To quote some random authors: ”evidence has shown a strong relationship between impulsivity and genetic variations of the enzyme primarily responsible for 5-HT degradation, monoamine oxidase-A (MAO-A)” Those genetic variations change the activity of MAO-A. The same effect is acquired by habitually consuming coffee.
  - relbeek2 4y ago
    Source?
    - eurasiantiger 4y ago
      You’ll have to enter those search terms into Google Scholar—I haven’t maintained my references in a good decade, and there is certainly lots of newer science out there.
klooney 4y ago
Starbucks has been selling a good blonde roast in drinks for years now, some of the rotating cast of mixed drinks default to it too.
hulitu 4y ago
I drank a coffee at Starbucks once. It was the worst coffee i ever drank: just bitter water. It was a unique experience. I will never buy anything from them again. (I don't drink coffee with milk)

12 points by denysonique 4y ago

Bingo. Not all of the beans they sell in grocery stores are so bad (though admitedly many of them are... looking at you French Roast and Winter Blend).

pylua 4y ago
Funny… they are really bad, I agree . However , I accidentally let a bag sit out for maybe half a year , and surprisingly it tasted so much better after that. Not sure as to why .

PaulHoule 4y ago

Back in the 1990s there were decent Espresso bars in any small city in a flyover state but you could not buy a good cup of coffee in Manhattan because every block had three Startbucks because they figured stock market analysts would assume that there were just as many Starbucks on every mile coast to coast.

scubbo 4y ago

> The light bulb went off: I knew the answer. They don’t want you to buy a shot of espresso. Espresso is not as profitable as espresso drinks. The only way to push espresso drinks with fancy syrups and names is to make sure as a stand alone, the coffee tastes like someone scrapped the burnt bits of toast into your mouth. Eh. I'm all for assuming the worst intentions of corporations at all times - but a much more reasonable assumption to my mind (which doesn't assume direct malice, but rather an understanding of the desires of their customers) is "they know that the vast majority of their target demographic will be ordering 'mixed drinks' anyway, and so there's no advantage to them in 'roasting properly' when the nuance will be lost anyway" That is - I believe that the author has the order of causation wrong. I don't believe that Starbucks' decisions lead people into drinking Espresso, but rather than Espresso is a specific drink with a specific consumption environment (at leisure, while seated, probably after or alongside a meal) which has no intersection with the consumption environments of customers who are likely to "drop into" a Starbucks. Imagine ordering an Espresso to-go from a drive-thru window!?

brailsafe 4y ago
I tried to order an espresso to go when I was visiting the states recently, and the person running the place had literally no idea what I was talking about.
- Tagbert 4y ago
  While American McDonalds do serve coffee, they likely don’t serve expresso. Any functional coffee shop in the US will be quite familiar with espresso.
  - gruez 4y ago
    >While American McDonalds do serve coffee, they likely don’t serve expresso. They should. I just checked the online menu and they have americano and various other espresso based drinks, but not espresso specifically. That said if you go in person you should be able to get an espresso buy telling them to make an americano without the water.
    - wpm 4y ago
      I used to start my opening shifts (4AM) with 3 shots straight from the same or similar machines they have now, so it’s 100% possible.
  - brailsafe 4y ago
    It was one of those roadside places with a giant "Espresso" sign or whatever. I just get regular crap coffee at McD
- seanhunter 4y ago
  I once asked a barista how to order an espresso to go in Venice (in Italian). He got me to repeat the phrase several times[1], then (to the amusement of everyone) told me "No". He wouldn't give me an espresso to go, he'd give me an espresso I could drink right there at the bar and then go. [1] Un espresso doppio della portata via

cheeselip420 4y ago

It's more about the fact that Starbucks uses fully automatic machines and less-skilled baristas to pull shots. With a super dark coffee, you can get consistent results (consistently bad IMO). If they went for lighter roasts, there would be enormous variability day-to-day which is likely not a great experience for customers who do like a good juicy light-roast espresso.

relbeek2 4y ago
It’s more likely the configuration of the automatic machine not the machine itself.

muzz 4y ago

Not sure if the economics of it are as simple as the author suggests. Espresso-based drinks take time to prepare, and while people are willing to wait, there is still a limited number of them that can be made per unit of time. On the other hand the number of drip coffees that can be produced per hour is much much higher, so even if the absolute profit per drink is lower they could easily sell more of them.

swatcoder 4y ago

The flavor is just a brand signature. It’s a savvy one for a (inter)national brand because it lets them mask inconsistency, and a savvy one when selling lots of latte-like drinks because it lets their signature carry through to those as well. No, it’s not subtle and delicate and classy, but those characteristics run counter to the McDonald’s-scale business that Starbuck’s pursued. They needed varying inputs to all taste roughly the same, in some menu of products that remixed a small core repertoire of ingredients in different ways. Subway sandwiches taste different and more bland than the ones from your local butcher counter because Subway needs to make a billion sandwiches that all taste similarly bland every day, every where, forever. Starbucks faces the same calculus. It’s nearly a 100 year old business model, it’s exhaustively documented, and it seems to work. If you don’t enjoy their flavor, you don’t need to. But neither convoluted personal theories nor taste snobbery aren’t necessary.

specialist 4y ago

My faves are (were) the earthiest beans with the darkest roast: sidamo, harrar, sumatra. If you don't like their dark roast, maybe choose one of the "blond" roasts, like Veranda. Or pick a Central American varietal, like Guatemala. Back in the day, Panama was the coffee snob's #1 pick. Medium roast Pike Place Blend is okay. I recall liking the Christmas blend. Just from their web page, looks like they now sell fewer varietals. Oh well. I guess it was inevitable. https://www.starbucks.com/menu/at-home-coffee/whole-bean https://www.starbucks.com/menu/at-home-coffee/whole-bean Makes sense though. Supply and logistics for niche beans is challenging at their volume. Small roasters (Herkimer, Lighthouse, etc, etc) can pick the best 500 lbs of beans and roast them to perfection. Whereas Starbucks buys millions of pounds, of varying quality, and tries to get all the batches to taste about the same. That's why they have blends and roast darker. Sure, hiding in those million of pounds are some amazing beans. But they all go into the machine just the same.

zoomablemind 4y ago

Unconvinced. It's more of a hypothesis that SB does not want ppl to buy espresso shots (which in fact is on the menu). They will get you on pastry anyway. I'd rather agree on this with the SB manager's rationale, that the blend/roast is tuned for the milk-based drinks, indeed, which are priced higher. From my own experiences, the baristas are often taught to put two shots into tall lattes, otherwise the clients complain of too milkiness. I won't drink that much of caffeine out of simple physiological concerns but completely understand the flavor expectations. As for the espressos, the coffee habits in the US are very particular, filtered and drip coffee largely rules, now with additional variety of "geeky" brew and drip with tons of bean blends to choose from. And, yes, let's not forget the expectations about the volume - it has to last through a meeting :) SB blend seems to serve to tastes equally in drip or blended with milk. Simplifies the logistics. For everybody else, try the Reserve. By the way, SB espresso is not too bad, goes well with vanilla ice-cream! Though my preference with SB is the hot chocolate, most other places care little about the good cocoa.

relbeek2 4y ago
Just a comment on shot count. Latte’s are an exception where a tall only gets 1 shot.

jnwatson 4y ago

Another conjecture: overroasting the beans concentrates the caffeine. Their tall (12 oz.) drip has an amazing 260 mg of caffeine. That's about double a typical cup of coffee.

eurasiantiger 4y ago
Not only that: overroasting shifts the beta-carboline profile more towards MAO-A inhibitors from MAO-B inhibitors. That can alter personality and cause impulsive behavior, such as impulse purchases. THAT is why they are burning their coffee.
- brianmcc 4y ago
  Really..?
  - eurasiantiger 4y ago
    Yes, really. In fact, both over- and underactivity of MAO enzymes are linked to impulsive behavior. To quote some random authors: ”evidence has shown a strong relationship between impulsivity and genetic variations of the enzyme primarily responsible for 5-HT degradation, monoamine oxidase-A (MAO-A)” Those genetic variations change the activity of MAO-A. The same effect is acquired by habitually consuming coffee.
- relbeek2 4y ago
  Source?
  - eurasiantiger 4y ago
    You’ll have to enter those search terms into Google Scholar—I haven’t maintained my references in a good decade, and there is certainly lots of newer science out there.

klooney 4y ago

Starbucks has been selling a good blonde roast in drinks for years now, some of the rotating cast of mixed drinks default to it too.

hulitu 4y ago

I drank a coffee at Starbucks once. It was the worst coffee i ever drank: just bitter water. It was a unique experience. I will never buy anything from them again. (I don't drink coffee with milk)