Starbucks is as Dirty as Any other Joint...

Making money requires each person on this earth to do something that he or she wouldn’t normally do. In working through school – more than one degree doesn’t always help, just sayin’ – I found myself awash in a sea of corporate shenanigans. Of course, I had a choice to work at Starbucks or any number of other places. But the allure of health care was, of course, pretty enticing. Was it worth it? Nope. But that doesn’t mean I worked all that hard. It just means that I was endlessly aggravated by the spate of semi-daft co-workers that came and went over time.

Cleaning takes up as much time at food service gigs as any other aspect of the job. And since there were more than enough tiny corners, nooks and cupboards at the store where I worked, during one’s down time, a rag in hand was something that was just expected. Granted, slacking off was an important part of my work day, but I was still able to get done what needed to be done. That doesn’t mean, however, that folks I worked alongside of had the same notion in mind.

Days that deliveries arrived yielded a tremendous amount of garbage. And considering the fact that there were several deliveries each week meant that very often a pile of trash awaited me when arriving at work. Propped up against the back door was invariably a multitude of broken down, cardboard boxes, but also various and sundry plastic bags filled with coffee grounds, food scraps and whatever other garbage had been collected over the course of the morning.

Lying around in the back, those bags were usually within an arm’s length of the shelf where pastries were stored. And while there wasn’t any contact between the two, it was pretty unsettling to see on a regular basis.

All of this notwithstanding, frequently, as merchandise displays changed, old cups and the like were discarded. I’m still rather confused as to why it all wasn’t donated or given away as something of an incentive to purchase other goods in the store. But a great deal of the unsellable goods wound up in those garbage bags as well. I demure about very little and my predilection for free stuff isn’t something that I’m ashamed of. So with viable coffee mugs and such strewn around the garbage area, I can honestly say that some of it wound up in my kitchen cupboard. Is that wrong? Perhaps, but I don’t really care.

The Starbucks Corporation has created an army of teeny boppers and adults as teeny boppers that see the mermaid logo as a sort of status symbol. And of all the status symbols in the world, that one in particular, considering the product it’s tied to, seems the most ridiculous. It’s just a beverage. It doesn’t matter where it comes from. Does it taste good? That’s the litmus test. So, the dumpsters out back might be the best thing about Starbucks. Check ‘em out. You won’t be disappointed.

Guns 'N Coffee

Starbucks is getting put in an awkward position by handgun enthusiasts, even though the nation's biggest coffee chain is trying its hardest to remain neutral.  In late February, the "Open Carry Movement" began encouraging people in so-called "open carry" states to wear their handguns everywhere - including Starbucks.

In an "open carry" state, you can carry a handgun, as long as it is prominently displayed.  In some states, the gun must be unloaded (although you can carry the ammunition in your pocket, ready to load).  The "Open Carry Movement" has been encouraging people to use their right to bear arms to the fullest, and has been encouraging people to wear handguns anywhere they can.

The connection between the Open Carry Movement and Starbucks is a bit confusing for me.  One of the first Open Carry Movement groups was in the San Francisco Bay Area, where proponents gathered at Starbucks coffee shops.  It's hard to say if they were just taking advantage of Starbucks as a meeting place, or needling the company's perceived liberal bias, or both.

Starbucks for its part has wisely refused to react.  Spokespeople for the company have stated that it will abide by the laws of the state that each store is in - so stores in California, for example, will follow that state's Open Carry laws.  Even though businesses are allowed to ban guns if they like, the same way they can declare "no shirt, no shoes, no service," Starbucks is sticking to neutral ground on this one.

The Open Carry Movement is meant to bring gun ownership out of the closet, so to speak.  But I don't think the movement's members realize that it has quite the opposite effect on the undecided public.  Standing in line for a latte behind some random guy packing a handgun on his belt is an unsettling experience, to say the least.  I don't doubt that the gun wearer feels more safe - why wouldn't he?  He's the one least likely to be accidentally shot through his own mishap.

But of course, Open Carry isn't trying to sway people to its side.  It is the right wing Glenn Beck fan's version of a Gay Pride parade.  "We're here, we're armed, get used to it!" may as well be their chant.  Fine, fine, that's great, enjoy your cinnamon dolce latte sir, next please?

Of course, one can't help but be somewhat disquieted by an aggressive political movement which revolves around wearing guns everywhere.  But coffee shops have been part of political movements since coffee was first brewed from that bitter little bean, so is it really any surprise?

I find this unfolding story fascinating, because it represents the first time (to my knowledge) that corporations have been openly used as a political battleground.  I guess their imaginations go no farther than "Um… Starbucks?"  

People, Starbucks is not a lifestyle.  It is not a cultural movement.  It is a business, plain and simple, just like Kinko's or 7-11 or Pizza Hut.  The sooner we stop identifying ourselves (and our opposition) with corporate entities and marketing campaigns, the better.

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user A Moon Man

Starbucks Will Start Offering Pour-Over Drip Coffee

Even Starbucks employees will quietly admit that the drip coffee available in Starbucks stores is just awful.  I don't know if it's the blend, or the way they brew it, or both, but I find it completely undrinkable.  Worse than office coffee.

Starbucks has made several moves to try and prevent this.  First they started insisting that baristas throw out the coffee every N minutes and make a new pot, so that it wouldn't be stale.  This resulted in the inevitable "We just put on a new batch, your coffee will be ready in five minutes."

Then, because "no one orders regular coffee after 2PM" and because they didn't want to waste it, they stopped serving regular drip coffee after 2PM.  

Then they went to this cutesy system where they offered a specific blend for drip coffee every day.  But no matter which blend they used, it always turned out terrible.  And many times I have requested a cup of Blend A only to find out that they sold out (???) but hadn't updated their sign, and would I like a cup of Blend B instead?  (And if you reluctantly agree to a cup of Blend B?  "Okay, we just put on a new batch, your coffee will be ready in five minutes.")

Worst of all, I recently visited a Starbucks store with a friend who wanted a cup of drip.  She requested a cup of Blend A, which was all well and good, until she spied the barista pouring her a cup of Blend B.  When my friend pointed out this switcheroo, the barista sheepishly admitted that they had sold out of Blend A.  I guess she thought my friend wouldn't notice the difference?

If I just want a regular coffee at Starbucks, I'll order an Americano.  I'm not touching the drip!  I don't know what they do to their drip coffee, but it's obviously not meant for human consumption.

Now Starbucks seems to have given up entirely.  They are going to start offering "pour-over" service at some of their stores.  This involves the use of something which used to be quite common, but which has since fallen into obscurity: the single cup, "drip it right into your cup" coffee cone.  It's a plastic cone that you set atop your coffee cup.  Just add grounds then pour hot water through.  Presto, a fresh cup of coffee!

These used to be quite common in offices, back before decent coffee became ubiquitous, and in offices which didn't have a coffee maker.  As long as you had a source of hot water, you could make a cup of coffee at your desk.  I remember my mother using one at her office in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  (This would have been long before the French press became readily available.)

According to this article in the Seattle Times, the pour-over "will not be customer-facing," meaning that the barista will make the pour-over themselves behind the counter.  But it's a lot funnier to imagine them handing the kit and a pot of hot water to customers.  Like, "We give up on this drip business - just make it yourself!"

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user onlyberlin

The "Flat White," London's and New Zealand's Favorite Espresso Drink

Via Metafilter today comes word of a new espresso drink which has taken the city of London by storm.  The "Flat White," which was reportedly developed in New Zealand (or perhaps Australia - but trust me, it's best to stand back and let the two of them duke it out) and quickly became popular in damp dreary London.

The Flat White can best be understood by the American audience as a double short no-foam latte.  It begins with two shots of espresso pulled ristretto - short - in order to maximize flavor while minimizing bitterness.  There are three ways to pull a ristretto shot:

1.    Grind the beans more finely, and pull a normal amount of water through them.  Since the water has less contact with the finer grinds, it will extract less bitterness from them.

2.    Use the same espresso grind, but pull the shot for less time.  This results in a literally shorter shot, between half to three fourths the volume of a regular shot.

3.    With an old school manual espresso maker, from which the term originates, pull the shot more quickly.  This results in the same amount of water coming through the grounds, but faster, so that they spend less time passing through the grounds.
Needless to say, in most coffee shops the barista has no control over the espresso grind, and the second method is used.

The next step is to steam a pitcher of milk as usual, but use a spoon or spatula to hold back the foam as you pour the milk.  Less milk is added to the espresso shot compared to a normal latte.  Either no foam, or just a tiny amount of decorative foam, is added at the very end.

I was surprised to learn that I had invented the Flat White myself a few months ago.  If you make espresso for yourself, I think it is probably natural to gravitate towards using less milk in relationship to the espresso.  Not least because milk isn't cheap!  

I also use a minimum of milk because frankly I don't have the patience to stand there and steam an entire pitcher of milk first thing in the morning.  I end up with a beverage which is about half coffee and half steamed milk by volume, with a varying amount of foam on top, depending on the sloppiness or precision of my steaming technique at the time.

The Flat White is more than just heated milk dropped onto a few shots of espresso, though.   When you steam milk in a pitcher, it turns from a straightforward liquid into a micro foam.  Even if you brush off or hold back the foam at the top of the pitcher, the liquid milk below is a blend of fine microscopic bubbles, held in a pourable structure by the milk's chemistry.  This gives the Flat White the same velvety texture as a good latte, but without as much milk to dilute the espresso's flavor.

After reading about the Flat White this morning, I certainly hope that it is adopted by coffee shops here in the States!

Creative Commons-licensed image courtesy of Flickr user Subspace

The Coffee Party

Further proof that coffee is the bringer of all good things is the Coffee Party, a new alternative to the Tea Party.  And without all the hilarious yet juvenile "tea bagging" jokes!

The Coffee Party "advocates cooperation among elected representatives and promotes civil public discourse."  As opposed to the Tea Party, which advocates drawing a Hitler mustache on pictures of Obama, and shouting a lot.  I can dig it!

Coffee is superior to tea in many ways, and so it is with the Coffee  Party.  The Coffee Party is creating and organizing local chapters, which will organize public gatherings at local coffee houses.  In fact, the first national Coffee Party event is scheduled to be held on March 13th, with the specific local coffee house locations to be determined by local Coffee Party organizers.

The Coffee Party is focused on communication and civil discourse, rather than on specific policy actions like the Tea Party.  No specific dogma or political position is espoused by the Coffee Party.  Instead, it is designed to help us learn, as individuals and as a society, how to talk about important issues without resorting to the troll and flame-war tactics of the Tea Party.  The Coffee Party holds that it isn't "us versus the government," but "us versus the corporatocracy," and that the government should exemplify the will of the people.

(And of course, the biggest difference between the Tea Party and the Coffee Party is that the Coffee Party is an independent grass-roots movement, while the Tea Party is sponsored, underwritten, and directed by the Fox News Network.)

You can find a local branch of the Coffee Party by visiting their website and clicking the Engage tab.  

The Coffee Party movement, and its method of gathering in coffee houses, also mirrors the history of coffee itself.  When coffee houses began cropping up in Mecca, Cairo, and Damascus in the early 1500s, they became a major concern because of the political discourse and revolution they bred.  Many imams (religious leaders) sought to close and ban coffee houses for this very reason.

In the 1600s coffee began creeping into Europe, and coffee houses were soon to follow.  Coffee houses in France were key in the development of the French Enlightenment.  Noted artists and scientists including Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot all frequented coffee houses and did some of their best work under the influence of caffeine.

Coffee houses went over well in England too, where the cool climate no doubt helped spur the spread of warm taverns where you could go to get a hot cup of coffee.  Revolutionaries and artists schemed and collaborated at coffee houses throughout England, and in the United States as well, where John Adams and Paul Revere both planned their rebellion at the Green Dragon coffee house in Boston.

Coffee even insinuated itself into the most recent American election, when the manufacturers of the K-Cup created two blends: the McCain blend and the Obama blend.  Barack Obama won the K-Cup vote, but not by much!

Virtual Espresso

Here is a virtual shot of espresso in case you are stuck in a baristaless environment.

Beef Alert: Starbucks Cap vs Latte

I am an avid coffee drinker. Espresso to be exact. And I like to mix it up, sometimes a mocha, sometimes a cappuccino and sometimes a 'mochaccino'. I'll even have a cup of joe from time to time when the mood strikes. But I got BEEF with Starbucks.

I have had cappuccinos in Paris, Rome, New York and San Francisco. And as long as I got those in a restaurant or cafe they were pretty much served alike. A shot of Espresso and about equal parts milk and foam. In my mind, the milk shouldn't outweigh the espresso and the foam should fill the bulk of the cup.

Now I will start my assault by mentioning I drink Starbucks and only twinge a bit at the corporate, every street corner angle. Here's my BEEF with Starbucks: the difference between their latte and cappuccino is almost indistinguishable. The subtleties of making coffee drinks are many and important. A latte and capuccino are made of the same ingredients: milk and espresso. So that puts all the emphasis on the ratio. A latte is a tall glass filled with milk and one shot of espresso. A cappuccino, by contrast, is much less milk, foam and one shot of espresso.

So when I go to Starbucks and order a cappuccino, I am looking to get a certain ratio. But at Starbucks their baristas seem unconcerned about the fine delicacies of ratios and tend to make me a latte-ccino, if you will.

The beef escalated from minor peeve to aggravated assault one day when I went to my wife's favorite pre-work Starbucks and tried to get a properly made cappuccino. I asked that the guy just add foam and he replied back to me, 'You mean you want it dry?" Well, I want a cappuccino, the way they are made in every other restaurant and cafe on Earth except for Starbucks.

"If you could just put foam on it that's fine" I replied.

"That's a Macchiato," he replied.

"No, a macchiato is a tiny dollop of foam, a cappuccino is a bunch of foam and some milk," I replied.

"No, a macchiato is foam on top with no milk."

So after more of this dialogue between a guy who took a one-day course through Starbucks and me, an accomplished world traveler, avid coffee drinker and fine dining employee, where I made thousands of coffee drinks, BEFORE anyone outside of Seattle had heard of Starbucks, he hands me a drink that is essentially a latte. Mostly steamed milk and a shot of espresso. I can tell by just picking the thing up that it's full of milk. So with parting words, I left with my latte. It happens every time, even when I say "dry" as Mr. Espresso told me.

I don't know how and entire corporate culture ignores one of the main differences between two of their biggest products, but they do. Peet's has a similar issue, so don't get all high and mighty Peetniks. Ah, the wonders of corporate America. But I'll be back, settling for a "dry" cappuccino. Oh the sad irony...

Maui Coffee

I confess that, after living in Washington for a little over a year, I've not yet really sampled the local coffee culture. I know, it's inexcusable, particularly since I'm exceedingly fond of coffee. I don't really have an excuse. I want to experience the full panoply of Washington's fine coffee emporiums and roasters, I really do. There's just one small problem. You see, long ago, I discovered Hawaiian coffee, and fell deeply in love with it. Not just the Kona brew you hear so much—but coffee from Kaanaipali, in Maui, or Kauai or Molokai. You don't hear much about Hawaiian coffee except for Kona, and honestly, most of the state-side Kona if you check the label is actually something like 10%, with the rest made up of Arabica.

Coffee first reached the Hawaiian islands in the form of fertile beans, in 1813, on the island of Oahu.

In 1825 coffee trees from Brazil, acquired by Chief Boki, the Governor of Oahu, arrived on the British warship H.M.S. Blonde. The coffee trees were planted in the Manoa Valley on Oahu. It wasn't much more than a botanical curiosity at the time, but in 1828 the Reverand Samuel Ruggles planted coffee in Kona, in an area that was well irrigated with rich porous volcanic soil. The coffee flourished there, but then in 1892, Guatemalan coffee beans that were both sweeter in flavor and even better suited to the growing conditions in Kona were planted by Queen Liliuokalani's former Minister of Finance, Herman A. Widemann.

From Kona, coffee, and coffee plantations spread to all of Hawaii's primary islands, though Kona was (and still is) the dominant coffee grower. There's a wide variety of Hawaiian coffee, and many small Hawaiian coffee growers. The nature of the islands micro climates and varied terrain means that the coffee is very much affected by local growing conditions—much like the way terroir affects wine. The small size of many of the coffee farms allows for hand-harvesting, especially on Kona, which in turn means that the fleshy red cherries are fully ripened on the bush before they are picked, which results in a more nuanced, and less acidic coffee. The single largest coffee farm is on Kaui, where they do use mechanical harvesters.

I am particularly fond of the coffees of Maui, especially Kaanapali, and of Molokai. You can sometimes find Lion Brand Royal Hawaiian coffee state-side; they produce blends as well as 100% Kona coffees. Trader Joe's carries both Kona and Molokai coffees, and both are lovely. There are a number of online Hawaiian coffee vendors as well; I'm partial to Maui Coffee Roasters, who do their own small batch roasting every day, and ship pretty much anywhere. They're the only place I've ever been able to reliably find my very favorite, Maui Kaanapali Peaberry. Another of my favorite varieties of Hawaiian coffee comes from the island of Molokai, where they grow red catuai, a variety of arabica coffee trees As of this 2009, there were 6,500 acres in coffee in the entire state of Hawaii, with an annual production of 6 to 7 million pounds green beans. In the island of Oahu, you can see coffee trees along the Kam Highway between Wahiawa and Waialua.

While I am determined to start trying the locally roasted and brewed coffees of Washington, I'm also glad I don't have to do without Hawaiian beans.

Coffee Productions

I am surrounded by coffee kiosks. I customarily pass five or six coffeehouses a day, some with custom small-batch

roasts, in an effort to go anywhere at all. Even the local grocery stores carry the beans produced by local roasters. The local climate is pro-coffee, to the extent that you have to hunt for the segregated tea sections in local grocery stores. Ordering coffee here is an art in and of itself, worthy of the mockery of coffee house trendiness in L. A. Story. Americano, cappuccino, mocha, expresso, latte, soy latte, half-caf, macchiato—it's complicated. Don't ask me to explain the decaf espresso crowd; I can't. My local purveyor has a menu item called "Why Bother: Sugar free, non-fat, decaf latte." I usually ask for a sixteen ounce drip coffee. The coffee there is roasted by a local roaster, and it's a special blend; sometimes I can tell it was a little late in leaving the roaster, and sometimes, it's been on the burner too long.

But it's still coffee. Coffee that has already had a traumatic cross-continental journey, for a fruit, or a "bean" that began life as a shiny bright red "cherry" on a bush. The ripe cherries need to be pulped within hours of picking, to remove the bright red flesh. The beans are then "fermented," a process which softens the fibrous outer coat after about 12 to eighteen hours so that it can be removed with water. If the cherry contains a single, and often slightly smaller berry, the resultant coffee is described as "peaberry." The de-fleshed beans are dried in the sun for three to five days. Even after drying, the beans have the papery "parchment"—shell a thin silvery outer covering, and referred to as "parchment coffee." Parchment coffee is hulled, to remove the outer skin; typically this is done by a machine. The coffee is then graded in terms of quality; pretty much every coffee-growing region has a different vocabulary for the quality stages, but the actual grades are similar. Much of it is sold as "green" or unroasted coffee at this stage. Once the coffee is roasted, what began as about 500 pounds when picked, results in about 80 pounds of roasted coffee.

I think, once I've managed to avoid the "robusta" (from a slightly bitter, more acidic species of coffee), that pretty much all coffee has its merits, ranging from the Engineering Department's "Bomb Shelter" coffee from the massive urn, coffee that dissolved styrofoam cups, to the sixteen ounce "drip" at my local, to what may be the ultimate in Really Good Coffee, Irish Coffee from San Francisco's Buena Vista Cafe. I note that as much as Washington is known for its "coffee culture," Oregon has it's own tribes of coffeehouses, and small-batch roasters, and Vancouver, Canada is equally proud of her baristas' talents.

My work is cut out for me, but I'll endeavor to drink as much coffee as my heart will tolerate. Sleep is for the weak-minded.

Image credit: C. Michael Neely

Coffee Origins

Coffee in terms of the ur-bean, if you will, of the species Coffea arabica, is native to tropical Africa,

in the region known today as Ethiopia, and is in the same family Rubiaceae as the gardenia. Your basic coffee bean traveled, in the space of a little under seven hundred years, from tropical Africa to the courts and markets of Europe. Roughly a thousand years ago, c. 1000 CE, coffee was brought from Africa to Arabia. Coffee addiction and the love of the bean spread with the spread of Islam, and thus coffee was spread to North Africa, the eastern(and Islamic) half of the Mediterranean, and India. Arabia, no slouch when it came to international trade, protected their coffee monopoly by boiling or roasting beans before export, thus rendering them infertile, and insuring repeat customers. According to tradition, one enterprising smuggler trader named Baba Budan managed to depart Mecca with still-fertile seeds strapped to his body in what I can only describe as a traditional method of of export. Baba's beans were planted, and flourished, and in due time produced seeds, which flourished unto the ninth generation.

Eventually, in the seventeenth century, coffee arrived in Europe via the machinations of a Venetian merchant in 1616. The enterprising, entrepreneurial Dutch proceeded to go to town, so to speak, creating coffee plantations on the then Dutch-controlled island of Java in Indonesia in 1696.

Soon the Dutch were bribing gifting aristocrats (presumably on the time-honored barrista principal of "the first shot is free), including crowned heads and wealthy merchants all over Europe with their very own coffee plants. Louis XIV of France received plant around 1714, and the plant was duly planted in the Royal Botanical Garden. Louis, not surprisingly, proceeded to refuse to share his drug produce. After a royal refusal to a plea for a cutting, a young Frenchman and native of the then French territory of Martinique, on Mathieu de Clieu, stole a sprout from the King's coffee seraglio, and scampered home to Martinique c. 1720.

The sprout increased and multiplied, to the extent of about 18 million trees in 50 years. From that sprout, coffee trees were planted all over South America—the principal source of coffee today. Indeed, in 1720 Lt. Col. Francisco de Melo Palheta of Brazil, managed to ah, convince, the wife of the governor of French Guina (east of Venezuela) to collude, and at a farewell dinner, she presented him with a bouquet of flowers, containing clearly visible (and consequently, diabolically hidden) seedlings of coffee trees he so very earnestly desired—and that the French Guiana coffee growers just as earnestly desired to keep to themselves.

By 1800, coffee plantions in Brazil had succeeded so very thoroughly, that coffee became no longer an aristocratic addiction beverage, but something for everyone to enjoy.

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