February 2009

Back to the Future: Starbucks Launches Instant Soluble Coffee

The coffee drinking world has received Starbucks' news of a new product launch with, let us say, "some skepticism." Howard Schultz is promising to reinvent the way we drink coffee on the go, by providing us with handy single serving packets of instant soluble coffee. In the minds of many people, instant soluble coffee is freighted with two associations: 1. Old people 2. Tastes awful When I hear the phrase "instant coffee" I think of my grandmother. Not because she drank instant coffee - she was a coffee fanatic, and would never stoop to such lows. But because she kept a jar of petrified Sanka in the back of her cupboard for emergencies, and for elderly visitors who preferred the taste of Sanka to a pot of freshly brewed coffee. Her own mother, who had been born at the turn of the century, greatly preferred the taste of Sanka. Apparently she had developed a taste for it during the rationing of the Great Depression.

Coffee Drinking Decreases Stroke Risk in Women

I am one of those people who routinely have two to four cups of coffee a day. I like my coffee. I like it so much I've learned to drink it black, or with skim milk, and still like it. But I'm frequently being told by well-meaning friends that coffee drinking is bad for me. I'm glad to say that there's increasing evidence that a moderate intake of coffee, by someone with in overall good general health who exercises regularly is not only not dangerous, it may actually be good for us.

Starbucks: ethical sourcing and Israel

Several posts ago, we brought up the issue of free trade coffee and the position of Starbucks on this issue. Someone at My Starbucks Idea found our post and commented with several links detailing Starbucks’ progress in the fair trade arena. According to a post written by Dub Hay, the Starbucks VP of Coffee and Global Procurement, the chain has been listening to their customers’ demand for fair trade coffee, and is doubling their amount of free trade coffee purchased in 2009. At 40 million pounds, this move will make Starbucks the largest buyer of Fair Trade coffee worldwide.