Passion For the Coffee-Cover

It’s time to talk about something old and new, all at once. Recipes and a passion for coffee. Those two things go hand in hand. The ‘new and innovative’ in the pairing of recipes and coffee, is Via. On the Starbucks website you can even find a web page dedicated to recipes using Via in them.  But going back 15 years in time, Starbucks put out an amazing book called, “A Passion For the Coffee”.  It has a 1994 publication date and the book walks the reader through a little bit about coffee history, Starbucks sourcing and roasting, and even has a page with the 1994 whole bean coffee menu. Personally, I’m incredibly sentimental about whole bean menus, because I think that as a coffee house it is imperative that the whole bean offerings be obvious and central to the theme of the store. And the whole bean 1994 menu (pictured below) takes me back in time: I remember Yirgacheffe being a regular coffee offering, and this was the era of coffee scooped out of bins (pre-flavorlock bags), and stores densely rich in the smell of coffee.  For those customers who are craving a cup of Starbucks Yirgacheffe coffee, look for it as a periodic offering through the Starbucks Clover stores.

Since the book dates from 1994, it also is reflective of the Starbucks of that era. Notice that on the page describing sizes and the offerings of espresso beverages, there is no “Venti” size. The book is from the era when the menu was “short”, “tall”, and “grande” and pre-dates the Frappuccino.

So the theme of this post is coffee and recipes, old and new.  Please feel free to comment. I’ve uploaded a handful of pages from the 1994 book which was the inspiration for this blog post.  Many thank yous to Larry Aldrich of Seattle Custom Framing for taking the pics.

[[Edit 11-30: After reading this blog entry, if you're in the mood to look at more recipes, I'd refer you to a favorite blog called "Savory Sweet Life".  A number of the recipe entries in that blog look Starbucks inspired!]]

Table of Contents

Pg 24 Roasting beans

Hazelnut Raspberry Muffins

Sizes & Espresso Menu

Blueberry Coffee Cake

Pg 4 Passion For Coffee

Pg 4-5 Passion For Coffee

Pg 16-17 Passion For the Coffee

Pg 26-27 Whole bean menu

Pg 36-37 PassionForTheCoffee

Pg 66-67-RaisinGingerbread

Pg70-71-Passion-ChocolateFudgeSquares

I am taking Thanksgiving week off from this blogging addiction! I will be back though, but sorry, there will be no updates for a full week. I know it’s a long time to go with nothing new. Hopefully you’ll come back in one week. Please feel free to comment on any thread, or post ANY Starbucks related comment in this thread.

This is an OPEN thread and even if you want to kvetch about your store, or talk about whole beans, or Via, or whatever, this thread is fair game.

Before I take a short break from the whirlwind blogging, I want to mention and highlight my favorite of my blog posts (in no particular order):

• “Tea is a prism that colors each day“
• “Recyclable cups & Starbucks“
• “(Red) & Starbucks: The year in review“
• “Starbucks tests the Honey Vanilla Vivanno“
• “15 pieces of Starbucks flair“
• “The Magic of Sumatra and Aged Sumatra“

What’s your favorite blog entry? (If you have one! I guess that’s pretty bold of me to even ask!) Enjoy your wide open thread!

The second  “mercantile” Starbucks swings open its doors tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. This new store is steeped in the tradition of classic theater with fringe, varied levels of lighting and heavy red curtains. It’s the eighth Starbucks store to be built according to LEED standards, taking care to use materials found at antique stores, reclaimed from old businesses, and environmentally friendly windows that open for natural summer-time ventilation.  This store is the second store to open as part of a LEED volume certification pilot program by Starbucks where Starbucks has committed to opening 10 of these stores around the world in the coming months.  This “Inspired by” Starbucks” offers the Frappuccino beverage, previously unavailable at 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea. The space is large, and exceeds 3000 square feet.

Daily coffee cuppings will be at 2:00 p.m.  The new “inspired by” store is a leap in separation from the store design of 15th Avenue Coffee which is themed even with coffee photography.  This new location feels more like a dark rest-stop of espresso from Synesso on a theater journey.  I hear that the entrance doors come from a Steven King movie set …But a picture is worth a thousand words:

2009 Christmas Blend Coffee Stamp

First introduced to the Starbucks whole bean line up, November 1984, Christmas Blend is still a favorite. The coffee beans in Christmas Blend are from Latin America, Asia/Pacific and Sumatra are first roasted separately and then blended together to create this special flavor. Most coffee blends are not roasted separately and then blended post-roasting. This coffee is unique because the Aged Indonesian and Aged Sumatra beans in it demand separate roasting, creating one of Starbucks very few blends actually blended AFTER the roasting is over.

Aged Indonesian beans are known for their unique spicy and syrupy flavors.  I have a very complete blog post here describing the unique sourcing involved in Sumatra and Aged Sumatra.

This year’s Christmas Blend is available in 3 sizes: 8 ounces, a full pound size, and a 1.5 pound size.  It is also available in decaf; I don’t pay too much attention to the decaf offerings, but I find that interesting that this coffee is available as decaf since there is no way to buy separately, ‘decaf Aged Sumatra’ beans.

This special coffee definitely is a winter favorite! Don’t be confused though! It may also be sold in stores as “Holiday Blend” with very different packaging but the beans inside are exactly the same! (At least I’ve been told that Holiday Blend is the same coffee – If anyone knows differently, please let me know. Thanks).

(Thank you Larry at Seattle Custom Framing for the photo of the 2009 Christmas Blend coffee stamp.)

Personal cups/tumblers

Bring in Your Own Tumbler:

This blog is about encouraging Starbucks customers to use a personal tumbler or ask for their beverage in for-here ware.

Yes, of course I believe that recycling paper cups is a good idea, but there is much more to the story than simply the paper cup itself. The story is really about consumer habit and resistance to any modus operandi a little less convenient to them.  This has to change. There is work to be done here, and we can only create consumer change if we start the conversation on why it  has to change.

By way of background, on mystarbucksidea.com one can easily find that the site is flooded with threads like, “Recyclable Cups!“.  Here are a few examples:

• “Recycle Cups!”
• “Recycling“
• Recycling at Starbucks!!!!“
• “Start mandatory recycling at Starbucks Cafes“
• “Recycle bin in every starbucks location“

(Some of the above mystarbucksidea.com are closed or merged threads).

I participate heavily on mystarbucksidea.com and often want to write long responses to these kinds of threads, but that site is not conducive to long posts.  These many repetitive threads shouting at Starbucks to please recycle paper cups are the inspiration for this blog post.

*****A non-Starbucks you-tube video as a starting point for discussion*****

First off, there is a you tube video here taking a small swipe at Starbucks for not doing more to encourage recycling and using personal tumblers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlfszjapNb8

^ It’s worth watching, whether you’re a Starbucks fan or not.  I can’t vouch for the factual accuracy of all the data that you-tube video but it  is loaded with eye-popping statistics:

“North America uses 60% of the world’s paper cups. 130 billion of them per year” and “those cups require about 50 million trees” and another eye-opener, “Starbucks goes through nearly 2.3 billion cups annually”

The above you-tube video is a little dated. For example it states that there are NO recycle bins at Starbucks.  As I write this in November 2009, that no longer is a completely true statement.  Increasingly, as stores get remodeled, and new LEED Certified stores open, we see recycle bins in here and there.

List of Starbucks with recycle bins:

Washington State:

• 1^st and Pike- downtown Seattle (“Heritage” Starbucks)
• University Village
• 65^th & Phinney
• 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea (the “Inspired by Starbucks” mercantile non-branded store)
• Pier 55 – Seattle
• Bellevue Square

Baristas have written to me to tell about their stores recycle efforts, and so I’ve heard that these stores here have recycling in them also:

Missouri

• Brentwood & White Starbucks, Brentwood, MO

New Jersey

• Woodbridge, NJ

South Carolina

• 6 Windermere Blvd.,Charleston, South Carolina

As I hear about company-operated Starbucks stores with recycle bins included in them, I’d be glad to add them to this list. PLEASE email me if you know of a company-operated Starbucks with recycle bins. Use the “Contact” form associated with this website or email me at sbux206@starbucksmelody.com.

According to the Fiscal 2008 Annual Report, as of September 28, 2008, Starbucks operated 9,217 company operated stores.  Think about how many paper cups could be saved if customers brought in their own tumbler:

If 100 people a day brought in their own personal tumbler, annually Starbucks would use about 921,700 fewer paper cups each year! That’s a lot of paper cups.  That’s almost a million cups!

*****How many customers are using a personal cup at Starbucks?*****

When baristas ring a transaction as including a personal cup discount, that data gets collected and mined and used to supply information in the Annual Shared Planet report.  There is no doubt, there is more personal cup usage than the appalling low number in the Shared Planet report due to forgotten cup discounts.  When you bring in your own cup, Starbucks gives you ten-cents off your drink purchase.

When a cup discount is forgotten, I think the barista should re-ring the transaction to include the cup discount.  It is the only way to make a difference and make your mark as a person using your own tumbler. Unfortunately, in my own experience, it is rare for a barista to re-ring the transaction. I cringe, but most commonly I see baristas reach into the tip jar and pull out a dime.  And I’m left thinking, “it’s not about your dime. I didn’t mean to tip a dime less. I want to make a difference with Starbucks.”  I’ve stopped arguing with baristas though.  Most seem to think I actually want a dime, and I get some really odd looks if I say things like, “I’m trying to make a difference with Starbucks”.  At a fundamental level though, I think most customers would say that making a difference to the planet is the reason why they use their own tumbler, and it’s not about the dime.

So this discussion begs the all important question, ‘what percentage of customers are using a personal cup?’.  The answer is 1.3 percent. This is appallingly low.  Less than 2 out of 100 customers walk in with a personal tumbler in their hands.  Even more surprising, according to Starbucks, this number is a fairly constant and stable number over a pattern of several years.

This is shocking! Customers, please bring in your own cup!! If you want to claim environmental friendliness, then you’ll make it a habit to have a cup in your car, in backpack, in your briefcase, it needs to be part of your routine.  What if Starbucks used a million fewer paper cups each year?  How about five million?  All I know is that with personal cup usage at an appalling low rate, there is huge room to save trees, landfills, and energy … All by YOU making a commitment not to use a paper cup.

Here is what Starbucks has to say about personal cup use (taken from their 2008 Shared Planet report):

Reusable mugs and cups.

“A lot of our customers are also working to reduce their own environmental impact even as we are. To help them help us, we offer a 10-cent discount in the U.S. and Canada to encourage customers to use their own reuable (sic) mugs for their beverages. Customers staying in a store can also request that their beverages be served in a ceramic mug.

Our U.S. and Canadian customers increased their use of reusable mugs to nearly 22 million times during fiscal 2008 – representing nearly one million pounds (454,000 kilograms) of paper saved. The percentage of total transactions where reusable mugs were used remained constant at 1.3 percent.

We think good habits should start with us. So we’ve challenged our U.S. partners (employees) to use only for-here cups for their own beverages – which would save more than 39 million cups per year. We’ve also asked them to encourage for-here customers to use ceramic cups and commuter mugs when they are taking their beverage to go.”

(Typo in original text).

Starbucks customers need to get into the habit of using their own tumbler.  There are lots of good reasons to use your own cup.  First off, you save ten-cents on your beverage.  Secondly, it is less likely that someone will mistakenly grab the wrong drink. In addition, a customer’s drink will stay warmer longer in a stainless steel tumbler than a paper cup.  And the beverage will taste better!

*****The current Starbucks paper cup*****

Many people ask the question, “Why isn’t the Starbucks paper cup easily recycled?”  The answer is that the cup includes a very fine plastic lining inside of it which is what gives the cup its superb durability.  The Starbucks paper cup was designed to hold very hot beverages and not burn the hands, and not deteriorate when full with very hot coffee.

The current Starbucks paper cup has an outer-shell which is composed of ten-percent post-consumer recycled material, and then an inner lining of low density polyethylene.  The current cup does have impact by reducing virgin tree wood because of the recycled paper fiber in the cup, but it simply doesn’t function as the “green” cup that many consumers and Starbucks partners aspire to proudly show off in their hands.

The current paper cup IS fully recyclable in some cities, but the overwhelming majority of municipalities and jurisdictions will not recycle this current cup due to its polyethylene plastic lining.

*****The future of the Starbucks paper cup*****

The future of the Starbucks paper cup is the quest for an easily recyclable paper cup.  I question whether Starbucks will ever find anything quite as durable as the current cup sans plastic lining.  But that is the challenge.

In May 2009, Starbucks hosted a Cup Summit at their headquarters.  Starbucks brought together thinkers, retailers, cup producers, and stakeholders all in one place to advance the goal of the fully recyclable cup.  Of course in tandem with the goal of the fully recyclable paper cup, is the goal of increasing personal cup use and for-here ware use at Starbucks stores.

The time-frame announced by Starbucks for the recyclable cup is that Starbucks plans to develop and launch this cup by 2012, and that it will be in wide-spread use by 2015.  Starbucks has stated that when the cup is first developed, it will be tested in key metropolitan markets first, and then its use expanded further to more locations.  These goals can be found in the Shared Planet report and Starbucks blogs too.

When all is said and done, hand in hand with Starbucks goals, customers need to change their habits. Just as many customers now bring their own bags to the grocery store, it’s time to bring your own tumbler.  I leave you with the Starbucks cup goals as stated in the 2008 Shared Planet report:

Starbucks goals

Exterior of licensed store

As I often have said, my store reviews are not random. They are carefully planned with a reason. Today, I write this post answering the request of a North Carolina reader who tells me that he will soon be moving to Seattle due to a job opportunity.  He contacted me through this site and inquired as follows:

"I'm moving to Seattle and will be working on First Hill.
 I'd like to read a review of the sbux
which will be closest to my new work place.
Is that possible?"

This post is for you!

After some more email conversation, the reader provided me with a location for his new job. With that information, I have pinpointed that he will soon be situated a short distance from a licensed location and a company-operated store.  Given that the North Carolinian reader will find himself between two Starbucks, I am reviewing them both:

((By the way, I won’t normally do two store review blog posts back to back! This is an exception!))

**Licensed Starbucks located at Broadway and Union (1401 Broadway, Seattle, 98122):

This store is located inside a QFC grocery store on Broadway at the corner of Broadway and Union.  I don’t usually visit licensed stores, but ran in today and bought a Pumpkin Spice Latte.  The store has an old Verismo machine.  There were two people working. The young man at the register was quite friendly, and saw me taking a pic of the store hours (I thought that might be useful information for you) and naturally, asked what I was doing. We had a minute of small talk and I explained that I blog about Starbucks.  He seemed genuinely intrigued, and asked me what my favorite Starbucks store is?  I mentioned that I am a fan of the “concept” store at First and Pike. He had no idea what a Starbucks concept store was.

Despite that often times the licensed locations baristas do not seem all that knowledgeable about Starbucks, the QFC locations seem to work pretty well as Starbucks locations.  At least in Seattle, the QFC locations do a good job of having friendly baristas, and also their licensed stores even honor most of the Starbucks discounts and promotional programs.  For example, today I received my 10 percent discount when paying with a Gold Card.

Granted, these are not Starbucks employees at this QFC Starbucks, but in truth it is NOT a bad option for a quick Starbucks run. I wouldn’t recommend it as a place to camp out and stay.  There were only four tiny square tables, and I wanted to pics of the tables but the place was busy, and all seats were taken, so there was no way to take pictures without getting a ton of people in the pics. My pumpkin spice latte tasted fine.

Store hours for this location are as follows:

Sunday, 7:00 am to 8:00 pm

Monday through Friday, 5:00 am to 8:00 pm

Saturday 6:00 am to 8:00 pm

And a few pics to give a sense of what this area looks like:

Broadway

South on Broadway

Inside Licensed Store

QFC Starbucks on Broadway, Cap Hill

Interior of licensed Starbucks

**The closest company-operated Starbucks is located at 1301 Madison, at about Madison and Summit.  (Starbucks store 3331):

This tiny Starbucks operates only Monday through Friday from 5:00 am to 7:00 pm.  I’ve been in and out of this store many times, though it is the kind of store that I get to only once or twice a year, and truthfully, only when I have a medical appointment in the area.  This particular neighborhood of Seattle is called First Hill, but sometimes it is called “Pill Hill” because it is densely packed with every kind of medical facility imaginable.  It has two newer Mastrenas to pull espresso shots, and its just generally speaking a nice normal Starbucks.  I guess since I often visit ‘concept’ stores or Clover stores, that I don’t find myself so often in these ‘normal’ Starbucks anymore. I will say that I have always had good experiences inside this store.  I can definitely recall about 18 months ago ordering the bold pick of the day coffee, and having a very nice barista offer to brew it up without any hassle whatsoever. Today, at about 2:30 in the afternoon, I was lucky enough to find Thanksgiving Blend on the brew, ready to go, so I got a tall cup of Thanksgiving Blend, and only stayed briefly.  The barista remembered my personal cup discount too.  If any readers here are looking for more information on Thanksgiving Blend, I highly recommend reading my blog entry on it – It’s a solidly bold and delightful whole bean coffee offering. And a few more pics to round off this blog entry:

Inside 1301 Madison Starbucks

Inside 1301 Madison Starbucks 2

Intersection of Broadway & Madison

Starbucks store 3331 Madison and Summit

Tigard, Oregon Starbucks

Time for a (roughly) monthly store review!

On this extremely rainy afternoon, I made my way down to Tigard, Oregon to visit a Starbucks. Unlike Juan Valdez who randomly chances upon his Starbucks for his reviews, I plot out which stores I will visit.

I picked this store because a familiar barista works there. A really wonderful barista transferred from a downtown Seattle Clover store to this store in Oregon. My understanding is that she is originally from Oregon, then moved to Seattle and first worked briefly at a Starbucks at 1st & Walker in the SODO neighborhood, and then from there moved to a downtown Seattle Clover Starbucks, where I met her. And then, the story doesn’t end, sadly she moved back to Oregon.

This store is a small brick building as a stand-alone cafe on a busy roadway, near a Subway, and next to George’s Giant Burgers.  I arrived early afternoon, and it didn’t let up raining the entire time I was there. Three partners were working when I arrived, including the store manager, Kristin. It tickled me pink to see one of the baristas wearing a green apron with not one but FOUR pieces of “flair“. Her apron boasted four mug pins.  I arrived in the middle of a rush, but as I sat there the business died down to just  a few people in the store. When it was quieter, one barista came out and swept the floors, and cleaned up around the store.  After the rush, a steady trickle of customers came in and out.

I had quite the afternoon. I spent nearly half an hour engaged with another customer who asked me “what is a blog?’ and wanted to know what I was doing at my little netbook.  As it turns out, she needed to get online, and needed to go through the validation of her new Starbucks registered card, and so I ended up offering her my netbook for a moment and she accessed her yahoo email.

She asked me a million and one Starbucks questions (she seemed a little confused that a person would write about Starbucks) and finally the conversation ended with, “Starbucks should be paying you …” (It’s not the first time I’ve heard that). I told her the truth that I would probably not be blogging about Starbucks forever … at some point I’m going to run out of things to write about! (This is probably going to be a short-lived blog).

While at this store I ate “Portland Coffee Cake” with my Thanksgiving Blend coffee, because it appears to be a local offering.  I’m a little puzzled but it seems in Portland the coffee cake offering is a slightly different recipe coffee cake than any other Starbucks coffee cake.  The topping is a bit more crumbly and it has a stronger sort of ’spice’ flavor to it, and the cake part is not quite as sweet as the typical Starbucks Classic Coffee Cake.

I have to comment on the bathroom too. So I did step into the ladies’ room and it was spotless.  I noticed that the bathroom mirror was perfectly spotless.  I don’t normally pay too much attention to the bathroom, just so long as it is ‘cleaner than a gas station’ but this bathroom was truly clean. I had to wonder if they had just been in there with the Spic ‘N Span moments before me, and I just hadn’t noticed.

I spent a long time at the store, and even after being there 90 minutes, the baristas – without any hassle – re-brewed Thanksgiving Blend for me. That was impressive too!

The store has 2 Mastrena machines and a typical Starbucks interior with some wooden round tables and two comfy chairs.  As an aside, I prefer the round wooden tables to the square ones I’ve seen at a few stores. I have heard it said (though I’ve never been able to confirm this) that when Starbucks was very very small, they spent a lot time studying what tables would work best in their stores and ultimately decided that the small tables had to be round.  There were 2 reasons for this: (1) They decided that square tables were more commonly associated with fast food and (2) that somehow a person sitting alone looked less lonely at a round table than a square table.

All is well that ends well … another successful and lucky store review excursion!  Clean bathrooms, Thanksgiving Blend, and Portland Coffee Cake! What more could I ask for?

Tigard, Oregon

Tigard, Oregon, Store 3389

Tigard, Oregon Starbucks 3389

Random Acts of Coffee Passion

The inspiration for this blog post comes from the movie “Office Space“.  Jennifer Aniston has a waitress job that she hates and she is required to wear “flair” at work.  She always wears the bare minimum number of “flair” and her boss is always on her case for only doing the bare minimum. She’s fed up with being a waitress and eventually quits her job. My apologies, this blog post will make little sense unless you’re familiar with the movie Office Space.

Ever since I saw the movie Office Space I started to notice all the many little pins that baristas wear all over their aprons and it reminded me of the “flair”.  I’m not suggesting with this blog that baristas are really secretly fed up with their jobs or hate their pins!! In fact, I think I’d proud to wear a “Clover” bin on an apron, if I were a barista. It means you’re Clover certified! One big distinction between the “flair” in office space and the million little pins that baristas wear is that a barista earns the pin. I was chatting with a friend about flair who said that Via earrings too count as flair. Technically I think that is “flair”.

I don’t have 15 green apron pins, and so I’d welcome seeing more of them!  In the meantime, let’s continue with “Random Acts of Coffee Passion”!! I think that’s my favorite of the “flair” but it’s so hard to pick. What’s your fave? (Thank you to Larry at Seattle Custom Framing for help with the pics).

Via Pin

Tazo Tea Pin

Starbucks Green Team

Random Acts of Coffee Passion

French Press &Siren Pins

Coffee Tree Branch

Clover Pin

[[Edit on 11-7-2009]]

A reader very recently wrote to me because he saw this blog post and wanted to share some of his own Starbucks pins. He emailed me a few images which I am passing along to you-all now. I am a bit kicking my self that I failed to include a V2V pin in my original post, because I am sure that I have one somewhere. At least I hope I haven’t lost it! Please enjoy a few more pieces of flair courtesy of reader contribution:

Be genuine pin

Starbucks logo pin

Involved pin

V2V pin

Welcoming

[[Edit on 11-8-2009]]

A reader wrote to me and wanted to share what a “5 year Anniversary Pin” looks like. This is totally cool. Notice the nice note that comes with the pin, accompanied by a classic H. Schultz autograph:

5yr Starbucks Anniversary Pin

[[Edit again on 11-8-2009]]

Another reader has contact me with a pic of this barista’s favorite piece of flair!! Worn with great pride!

Coffee Master pin

[[Edit again on 11-10-2009]]

Here’s a Starbucks Chocolate pin image sent to me by another reader! Thank you so much for all the many emails and ways that baristas have contacted me about their flair!

Chocolate

Chicago Via Earrings 1

This is Via Ready Brew Earrings Episode #2:  Does anyone remember my previous blog entry on the “Via earrings and enthusiasm” at a downtown Seattle Clover Starbucks? Well, a regular reader of this website was inspired to make her own Via earrings (she is a customer!) and gave them as gifts to her local baristas!! I think that is so cool! I just wonder if decaf Via earrings will be coming soon too. Though I don’t normally like to make so many blog posts back to back, I wanted to share the Via enthusiasm once more … And moreover, this is such a great example of people connecting together at a Starbucks and sharing their creative talents! Chime in on your Via enthusiasm or whatever Via stories!

Chicago Via Earrings 2

2008 and 2009 Thanksgiving Blend Coffee Stamps

Thanksgiving Blend is here! Starting November 3, 2009, Thanksgiving Blend arrives in the stores! This coffee was first launched as a new Starbucks blend on November 4, 2008 and due to its popularity, it returns again in 2009.  Famed chef Tom Douglas helped create this blend which is meant to be a wonderful companion to a Thanksgiving feast at your dinner table. The coffee is primarily a blend of Sumatra and Guatemalan Antigua beans. In November 2008, there was a cupping at the Starbucks Support Center where a few customer joined in the event, and Tom Douglas briefly spoke about Thanksgiving Blend. Video is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7BeTLud2T4

Coffeemaster Anthony Carroll and Tom Douglas together created and blended this coffee, and there is an informative video about the creation of this coffee is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf7Y-y-muoc

The coffee stamps for this post are the 2008 and 2009 stamps side by side. Notice that the 2008, initial launch year stamp, is undated.

Starbucks gives some coffee tasting information about Thanksgiving Blend as follows:

Flavor: Subtle spice, cocoa notes, hints of fine herbs

Body: Full

Complementary Flavors: Herbs, savory dishes, cheeses and desserts like gingerbread and cheesecake

Processing Method: Washed and semi-washed

Location: A blend of heavy-bodied coffees from Guatemala Antigua and Sumatra

Enjoy!

(Thank you again to Larry of Seattle Custom Framing for the photography of the Thanksgiving Blend coffee stamps)