It’s 31 ounces of Starbucks cold thirst-quenching goodness! But what a dorky name.  I don’t like the name “Trenta” because it’s too trendy sounding.  This is a test-size currently being tested by Starbucks in the Phoenix, Arizona area.  This is definitely not the first time Starbucks has experimented with a size larger than the “Venti”.  The last round of super-sized testing was in 2008 with the “Double Grande” size. (16 ounces x 2 = 32ounces).  I have previously blogged about it here:

I’ll take a “double grande” Starbucks passion tea lemonade.

So who here wants to see the Trenta size come to a Starbucks near you?  In all honesty, I think it is terrible for the brand image because it associates Starbucks too closely to the idea of “Super Size Me” or “Super Big Gulp”.  In fact, I’m sure on a hot summer day, I could really drink 31 ounces of a Tea Lemonade, but the idea of a 32 ounce Frappuccino makes my skin crawl.  As it stands right now, I never order a size larger than a tall for a Frappuccino because that is all I can drink.  Nor can I imagine what the price point is for this beverage. Exactly how much does a Trenta Passion Tea Lemonade cost? That’s a lot of beverage.

So let’s work together and come up with a fine name to tame this beastly size.  Here are a few of my wild ideas – Tell me if you like any of them:

• Double Grande (previous test size name)
• Triginta (Latin for 30)
• Sirenta (The Siren’s size)
• Trente (sounds only slightly better – French for 30)
• Pequod (hahahah – Moby Dick’s ship)
• Welle (pronounced Vella – It’s the German word for “wave”. Doesn’t really fit with the Italian themed sizing but sounds intriguing).
• Onda (Latin for “wave” – I actually kind of like this a little)
• Wave (well, one can kind of drown in that big of a drink).
• Corsa (Italian, run, race)
• Corso (flow, stream, tide in Italian)
• Sonata (I like this one, but too bad it’s already taken for a car.  Beethoven wrote 32 piano sonatas, and the number 32 comes up oddly in music often.  I think that Beethoven wrote 32 variations in C Minor, and I think Bach wrote 32 Goldberg Variations. I don’t know why but it seems like the number 32 comes up often in music.)
• Forte (Another music inspired idea – Meaning robust, or strong.  I love this idea too but think this is also a car already.  Though it still sounds good. I’ll order a “forte” Passion Tea Lemonade.)

Those are all the ideas I can come up with! Maybe trendy Trenta isn’t so bad after all.

Undercover Boss is a CBS reality tv show where CEOs or high level executives are placed at the lowest totem pole positions within their own companies. The execs are in stealth mode.  In the blogosphere,  others have thought that maybe Howard Schultz should go Undercover Boss as a Starbucks barista.  The obvious problem with this idea is that he is an incredibly recognizable CEO.  Even if baristas do not immediately recognize him, many customers will pick him out of a crowd easily.  Also, he is nearly two generations older than the typical barista, and frankly, it’s not all that believable to see a baby-boomer in a green apron.

On the other hand, Michelle Gass is a long-time Starbucks partner who is the current president of Seattle’s Best Coffee, and previously was the Executive Vice President of Marketing and Category at Starbucks.  She’s a generation- X partner (I don’t really know at all, but I guess that she and I are about the same age) who could easily go undercover at either an SBC or Starbucks.  Very few partners will recognize her, and even fewer customers.

She’s perfect for the job.  However, I cannot claim credit for this blog idea.  This blog was inspired by a conversation I had with “Boston Starbucks Rebel” who is the originator of this idea.  She could go undercover at a couple of different kinds of stores.  Here are four store-type ideas worth exploring: An urban coffee opportunities partnership with Magic Johnson stores, a Starbucks in suburbia, busy bottom of tall downtown office-tower store, and a busy drive-through.

Though, theoretically speaking she has done something like this before.  Most Starbucks executives have indeed spent some time working at the store-level, though it may have been simply the corporate executive immersion that Starbucks is known for.  If a new VP or managing director comes to Starbucks, he or she must spend a period of time (I think it is like one week) being immersed: This means working in the store, spending time on the register, on the bar, and simply being a barista.  I’ve heard these stories, and once in a while the news will pick up on it too.  For example, Stephen Gillett’s (Starbucks Chief Information Officer) one week immersion at a drive-thru Starbucks is mentioned here. If you want to follow Stephen Gillett on twitter, click here.

Hopefully Michelle has a good sense of humor about this, and if she is reading this, I hope she’s having a good laugh.  She’s probably thinking, “that Melody!” ((And if Michelle Gass is not up for this, I can start recommending other Starbucks leadership for this task! heeheehee))

So who else wants to see a Starbucks executive UnderCover?

On February 26, 2008, Starbucks closed all company-operated Starbucks for a massive “hard reset” of baristas by retraining them on the perfect espresso beverage.  For about three and a half hours, all Starbucks closed, perhaps causing the largest corporate-induced caffeine withdrawals in America’s history.   Soon, brewed coffee will go through the same zenith level transformation, and it is only a shame that they wait until March 9, 2010 to officially have all stores up-to-speed with the Pour Over brew method.  If they had launched the Pour Over nationally on February 26, 2010, they could have drawn the parallel that now brewed coffee gets its revitalization finally: Bold coffee offered as a single-crafted cup of coffee for each customer.

Starbucks provided the stores with training materials, including one item with this following message (below) from Howard Schultz to Starbucks employees (employees are called “partners”).  I’ve transcribed the Howard Schultz message, almost in its entirety below.  Keep mind, that the excerpted message below was spoken, so all the punctuation and emphasis is my interpretation of what I listened to.

*******************************************************************

Message from Howard Schultz

Hello Partners:

You know over the years I’ve made countless videos to share with you one message after another and when I think about all the things that I’ve talked to you in the past about,  I can’t think of a more important message than the one I’m about to share with you.  And that is that you are in the midst of going through the transformation of the company in terms of our passion and commitment to ensure the fact that you have all the tools and the resources to not only make the perfect shot of espresso in every espresso-based beverage but to really understand what’s behind this and why it is so vitally important.

….

And if I’m really honest with myself, I think that over the years we have not as consistent and as committed to ensuring the fact that the quality of the beverage was compatible and matched the quality of the coffee that we sourced and roasted.  And what I want to make sure you understand is that this is not just about training; this is about the love and the passion and the commitment that we all need to have to the customer.

Our customers are coming into Starbucks because they have a level of trust and confidence that we are sourcing and roasting the highest quality coffee in the world and they are going to get a perfect beverage.  I think over the years we’ve kind of lost our way a little bit and talked about speed of service, USDs,  and all the things that are important for the business but I think they’re out of whack.  What’s really important – the most important – is that we exceed the expectations of our customers.  And I’ve always believed the only way we can exceed the expectations of our customers is that if we could exceed your expectations and that is why we are investing in you, investing in this transformation so that we really get back to the core, to our roots, to the heritage, and to the tradition, and the romance of coffee: The love of coffee.

And what I’d like you to do when you go through this is really not just go through the motions: Really embrace this moment and realize that that it is not about 100,000 partners. It is about one partner, one customer, one cup of fantastic coffee at a time.  The business that we are in, and always have been, is that we are the leading roaster of coffee in the world in terms of quality, the precision, excellence, and that all comes to life when you hand that cup of coffee to the customer.

**********************************************************************

So it’s been two years. Who remembers this, and what is their take on this now? Did it work?  I think if nothing else, I think it re-connected baristas to the notion that “if your drink isn’t perfect, we will remake it for you.“  I think that Starbucks had started to fall asleep at the wheel with respect to this message, and that this training session was the cornerstone to a larger piece of barista education: Yes, the drink IS important.  It is each baristas’ individual responsibility to make the shot great, steam beautiful foam, and hand it to the customer with a smile.

Discussion is welcome… This is an open thread. Feel free to comment on ANY Starbucks topic or this topic.  On February 25, 2010, Starbucks.Com went through a complete site redesign – Store hours are now on the store locator, and the look and feel of the site is very different than before.  That’s one more possible conversation topic!

This is also a good chance to look back at some prior threads here at StarbucksMelody. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Street level 101: There are two non-branded Starbucks
• No better time than winter in Vermont for a soy Frappuccino
• Barista Art Contest (Still open right now! Contest is open until March 1st!!)
• Passion for the Coffee: The ultimate Starbucks book
• The 1992 Shareholders’ Annual Report – The very first Starbucks annual report
• 15 pieces of Barista Flair

Mozambique

Andy is a fellow blogger in Mozambique running a bakery.  I follow his blog with great curiosity here.  I guess I have a great fascination with what he writes because every single blog post of his is like a completely different universe from the life of StarbucksMelody, who basically just works and spends an unusually large amount of time in downtown Seattle.  Andy, who originally comes from the UK, is running a bakery in Mozambique complete with a farm and paid employees.  I sent him some Starbucks coffee (Starbucks French Roast, Christmas Blend, Sun Dried Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, and Via Ready Brew) in late December (or perhaps early January, not sure exactly when it was now) and because the transit time from Seattle, Washington, to Mozambique  is rather lengthy, he only just now got to try it.  He sent me a great email (with permission to use it however I liked) about his own personal experiences with Starbucks.  Perhaps one of the interesting parts of his email is how he grew up on instant coffee, and loved the Via Ready Brew.  This blog post here is simply to share with you Andy’s coffee story and a few pictures he attached with the email:

[This is his blog here - http://mozbak.blogspot.com/ and click here to read about the Starbucks coffee finally arriving in Mozambique.]

********************************************************

Andy’s coffee story:

Trying to sum up my job description is something I have often struggled with. I guess it could be broken down to two main duties which share unequal amounts of my 14 hour work days.

My primary job is helping to run a 500 Hectare community development farm in southern Mozambique and NGO in southern Mozambique. Doing everything from paying salaries to our 80 staff, harvesting maize or rice that we grow, to catching poisonous snakes, cooking meals or unblocking a drain pipe!

Every day of the first 2 years I lived in Mozambique we drove a 16km (10mile) round trip to buy bread and fetch fresh drinking water from the local town.” Why don’t we have a bakery on the farm?” I used to ask my colleagues, “great idea” they’d say “but how’s its never going to make any money” and “who’s going to take the loss?”. After pondering for some time about how I could help some of the poor people in our area, I knew that a small business start up would provide skills and jobs, but what business to do? I knew we needed a bakery but personally knew nothing of building or baking (not much help then!). So in a crazy moment I took the plunge, raised some funds, drew out a sketch of a building, looked up oven construction plans on the net and started building a bakery! That was 18 months ago and today we’ve baked our 20 000^th loaf, employ 2 people full time and provide bread both for sale to the community and as donations to its poorest members, inmates in the local prison (who are not fed by the government) and local orphans.

Having grown up in the UK, hot drinks to me always meant ‘tea’ not coffee, a cup of tea being the British peoples’ answer to everything! In Mozambique the only hot drink I initially had available to me was cheap instant coffee – stained by the addition of chicory. Avoiding the inevitable for a few weeks I succumbed and began drinking “the black stuff”. Seeing there was something to it, a taste I enjoyed there somewhere I spent my holidays back in the more first world South Africa, looking through the supermarket shelves for a better coffee. Slowly I worked my way through the instant variety’s all granulated and freeze dries, the “Gold” this, “platinum” that until I worked out it was no more expensive to try ‘real’ coffee after procuring the use of a cafetierre (French press or “plunger” as we call it here).

Soon I was Andy “the coffee nut” always arriving back from South Africa with various coffee’s and new paraphernalia, the best buy of which would have to be my Solis “scala” coffee bean grinder. Recently I helped restore a tired espresso machine to its former glory and have enjoyed coffee’s of the short intense variety. Still though, nothing beats a good filter coffee from French press for maximum flavour and enjoyment.

The last time I was in a Starbucks was probably a good five or more years ago. I have recently, through a generous gift package from Melody, been able to sample a few varieties:

Via – instant micro ground: The Italian is wonderfully dark and blows my mind as to how an ‘instant coffee’ can taste so good. I always found your classic instant ie. freeze dried, had a bland chalkiness to the aftertaste, not so with Via. Slightly acidic and perhaps too dark for my tastes, but wonderfully satisfying all the same..

French roast – Right up my avenue this one, dark with woody notes and not bitter to the taste, didn’t work so well in an espresso machine though, better enjoyed through French press.

Ethiopa sun dried Yirgacheffe – I was told to watch out for the detectable berry flavour and I can see why, a definite light fruity aftertaste make this a must for my late evening cup, enjoyed by French press with friends in my little thatch roofed bungalow! Helped no doubt by knowing this coffee has worked its way from nearby (relative to me) Ethiopia, to the states for roasting and back here by special air mail!

Rachel Brews (Red)

Starbucks previously announced exciting news that the “pour over” brew system is coming to soon all company-operated Starbucks.  Today (February 20, 2010) I had the chance to taste out a few coffees made with the pour over at a coffee event in West Seattle.  (West Seattle is actually part of City of Seattle technically, though it is a bit geographically distant from Seattle, and it feels like a completely different city). So I hopped in my car and drove for a full half hour, and I was there at the Starbucks store located in the Alki Beach neighborhood of West Seattle.

I arrived and immediately recognized coffee-master Zach working at the pour over brew station, who once upon a time, worked as a barista at 1912 Pike Place. He recognized me from there as well.  I met up with Sbx_Bean (“Cecile”) from MyStarbucksIdea and I met Rachel A. who is on the brewed coffee team at the corporate headquarters.

Zach began by brewing up Sumatra for everyone to try through the pour over cone brewers.  For those who do not know, essentially with the pour over brew method, filters are placed in plastic cones, and water is poured over ground beans in the filter.  Sumatra is perhaps Starbucks’ most popular single-origin coffee.  It is sourced from the island of Sumatra, in a semi-wash method, with farmers washing the coffee cherries handful by handful by dunking them in vats or buckets of water.  Sumatra is produced almost entirely by small farmers who often have coffee farms of less than one hundred coffee trees.  I highly recommend that my readers read about the unique sourcing of Sumatra in prior blog post here.

I took a tiny sample cup and definitely enjoyed having a cup of Sumatra.  The great thing about the “pour over” brew system is that it produces a flavor profile nearly identical to drip-brewed coffee in the larger brewers, but does so with almost no coffee waste.  At one time, about a year ago, I was mad that Starbucks does not simply brew bold all day.  Slowly, over time, my opinion changed a little bit. I was never happy with the experience of ‘brew on demand’.  Let me be clear about this: ‘brew on demand’ was a very poor answer to the Starbucks problem of over-brewing coffee.  However, slowly between about spring 2009 and present, as I began to realize that more and more that the independent coffee movement is to produce a single cup of coffee for a customer rather than brewing large batches.  One important part of all this is the environmental impact of coffee sourcing.  It takes a full coffee tree at coffee harvest to produce one single pound of coffee.  The millions of coffee trees required to produce enough precious coffee for 40 million customers a week cycling through the doors of Starbucks … well, it’s just stunning to think about the human labor involved and the millions of trees required.  On the island of Sumatra alone, in 2008 there were about 24,000 C.A.F.E. practices farmers.  Since coffee is a precious resource, it is important to think about how much labor is involved to produce it and the environmental considerations of farmers harvesting literally millions and millions of coffee trees each year.  Each farm may only have two harvests per year.

Following Sumatra, Rachel and Zach prepared Verona through the brewers and then African (Red) Blend after that.  Both held up very well as pour over coffee. The (Red) was particularly impressive.  There were lots of typical fruit like notes to the (Red) coffee.  I was excited to hear from Rachel that as the pour over rolls out nationally (will be in all Starbucks by March 9, 2010) concurrently Starbucks plans to emphasize bold choice, and finally offer some bold offerings that have not been seen in the core brew cycle for a long time: The  favorites Italian Roast and Yukon Blend will be back soon as part of the core rotating bold line up, as well as, (Red) brewed as a bold pick too.  There was chatter that at some point there will be a promotion featuring (Red) Blend in the afternoon with a nickel from each cup sold of it going to (Red), an organization bringing HIV and Aids medicine to Africa.  (Don’t quote me on the (Red) promotion! I’m not sure of any specifics of that).

At the end of the event, the many customers in attendance received a little goodie bag, which had a mug inside, a Starbucks card, two CDs, and some chocolate.  Since technically, “StarbucksMelody” is media (though I have some difficulty thinking of myself like that) I have to disclose to you that ‘Starbucks has provided coffee or other promotional consideration‘ for this blog post, meaning that, hey, Melody drank some free coffee, schmoozed with coffee people, and got a bag of goodies free from Starbucks.

If you enjoy this blog post, you might also enjoy the following:

• For the love of Mexico Chiapas: Coffee tasting event
• Starbucks Arabian Mocha Sanani – Your introduction to a cupping at 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea
• Casi Cielo returns to Starbucks

And I hope that I’ll get to hear from baristas everywhere already using the Pour Over.  Please do tell all about what you like or don’t like about the pour over, and how the customers are enjoying it.

It wouldn’t really be much of a StarbucksMelody blog post without a few pics to go with it, so here ya’ go!

Just Getting Started

Zach hard at work

Melitta-BrewerCones

View From Alki Beach Starbucks

Rachel brews (Red) coffee

Zach Rachel Melody in conversation

This is the first of three blog posts where StarbucksMelody takes you on a brief journey into the international Starbucks experience. This episode takes you to Japan.  These posts will not be an in-depth analysis rather, we’re just going to put our big-toe into the Starbucks international waters.   Starbucks’ most famous Japanese customer is likely Noboru Sakamoto who has visited more than 100 Starbucks stores in Washington State.  Mr. Sakamoto contacted me, explaining that he enjoys reading this site, and added that in Japan a new Starbucks card has just recently been released.  My understanding is that these items are very new to the Japanese stores.  I just recently received in the mail the card and tumbler from Japan, and I love it!! They are beautiful designs! Purple and pink are great colors, and I would have never thought to have a matching card and tumbler.  The card and tumbler are featured in the photos to this blog.

A little background about Starbucks and Japan:  The first Starbucks retail location was opened in the Ginza, the heart of Tokyo, on August 2, 1996.

Those who have heard Howard Schultz speak have probably heard the tale of how Starbucks entered the Japanese market.  The lore goes that some expensive consulting firm told Starbucks that their business would never succeed in Japan.  As Starbucks was told, the no smoking policy within a Starbucks, and the large percentage of to-go business were said to be business killers for Starbucks in Japan.  As this tale goes, Howard Schultz disregarded the advice of the expensive consulting firm, and nervously entered Japan in 1996.  Of course 14 years later, one can only say that Howard Schultz was right and the naysayers were wrong. Clearly, Starbucks is a hit in Japan.  The conclusion of the Starbucks-Japan lore is that at opening day, Howard Schultz watched on opening day in August 1996 as young Japanese men and women lined up to say those magical words, “double tall latte” despite knowing no other English.

So, let me say thank you again to Mr. Sakamoto.  I am really touched at his thoughtfulness to send me something special.  I know not everyone understands this, but for me, I love how Starbucks can connect people so far away to each other.  Yes, I can speak the same language as Mr. Sakamoto so long as we’re speaking “double tall latte”

Barista art in Starbucks is dying. It’s fading away. It’s almost none existent.  It has been replaced with quick, easy, down and dirty stencil art. This is very disappointing to me.  Why is it a dying Starbucks tradition? I can only make guesses but the answers seem obvious:  The labor at a Starbucks is stretched so thin that there is hardly time to even do the chalkboards, and with Starbucks encouraging the use of stencils, there is a push towards uniformity.

It saddens me to see chalkboard art fading away from Starbucks in favor of uniform simplistic stenciling.  This has always been one of the things that gave each Starbucks its unique personality.

When I started the barista art contest in a previous blog post, I had thought that art work, as I had stumbled upon at the First and Pike Starbucks was common place.  I was wrong.

Instead, as I traversed a variety of Starbucks I discovered chalkboard art is a rarity.  I heard this from others all across the country.  One twitter friend who wanted to join in the ‘find the barista art’ contest said this:

“I have now visited, since 1 pm, a dozen starbucks in NYC and none had chalk art for @SbuxMel ’s contest!“

I primarily use Twitter to promote this website (though lots of non-twitter folks visit it too) and another regular participant here (who is here in Western Washington) at this site had this to say about finding Starbucks barista-produced chalkboard art:

“@lyracole yeah lots of non @starbucks have coffee chalkboard art but I rarely see it at @starbucks stores anymore “

And yet again, this same message was tweeted to me, this time from the state of New Jersey:

@SbuxMel Not only am I not finding original barista art I am not finding any barista art

I heard this theme over and over again, in direct messages, emails, and on twitter. Starbucks barista produced art is a thing of the past, or very rare.

Here in another tweet, from the state of Arizona, again I heard that there is no barista art:

@SbuxMel 4 more Starbucks over the past 4 days…NONE had any diff chalkboard drawings, or any standing/outside chalkboards! Arrgh…

A February 15, 2010 comment by “yukonlvr” at Starbucks Gossip also is quite telling of the same story: Customers can consider original barista-created art to be a thing of yester-year:

@Melody

chalkboard art is definitely becoming a thing of the past. it sucks because i love doing chalk signs because it allows me to be creative, but my manager hates it because ‘i take too long.’ i hated when stencils rolled out because it just makes all the signs look blah. i recently got to do a valentine’s day sign though, so i’ll send a pic and enter! hopefully they haven’t washed it off yet! one of my favorites was a promo for brazil ipanema bourbon i did a year ago. she was beautiful!

Probably in the mind of Starbucks, worrying about the chalkboards is the least of their concerns. It doesn’t affect the quality of the drink, and it is only a drain on labor.  I’m sure that no one in Starbucks will care about this kind of thing:  Discouraging barista art does nothing to affect the P & L sheet, doesn’t create beverage complaints, and doesn’t affect shareholders.  There are no corporate partners who would worry about this kind of thing, I surmise. Who cares?

I care.

On many occasions, I have written that every drinks has two distinct parts to it. (1) the drink itself and (2) the experience.  Some of these things can be quantitatively easily measured:  How fast was it made? What temperature was it served at? How long was the wait? But as Starbucks increasingly focuses on a narrow range of metrics, the qualitative part of the beverage is completely forgotten: It cannot easily be measured, but yet it too affects the bottom line.  How friendly was the barista at the register? And even what was the store like? Did it feel like a cookie-cutter experience?

Ostensibly, Starbucks now attempts to recapture a sense of community and local experience in their latest store designs, and so now would be the right time for Starbucks to revitalize and encourage baristas to show off their local art skills.

Most of the things that really make a Starbucks feel like a third-place for customers, and develop store-loyalty cannot easily be measured. It is not the beverage that can be prepared with a stop-watch. The cachet of the brand is in the experience.  It is true that there has to be some predictability inside the stores – Every Starbucks has the same beverage menu for example, unless by chance the customer happens to stumble upon a store participating in new product testing.

My barista art contest is still ongoing.  As I write this, about a dozen people have emailed me with submissions.  Hopefully more are on the way.  It’s been one week since I started the contest, but I’m disappointed at the constant theme that it is very hard to find anything more than very uniform chalkboards.

Please chime in my friends…

[[Just as a reminder, it is not too late to enter the barista art contest. You do not have to be  a barista or an artist! You just have to find the art, photograph it, and follow the rules as outlined in the contest.]]

There is nothing better than finding a coffee tasting of Mexico Chiapas happening at your local Starbucks. I attended a great coffee tasting at the First and Pike Starbucks with two baristas who paired some great local Seattle foods and some chocolates (TCHO Chocolates) available at selected Starbucks stores with this seasonal Starbucks coffee offering.  And coincidentally, about two weeks ago, a reader used the contact me form on this site and asked me if I would feature this coffee.  He simply wrote:

"I noticed a recent seasonal
blend wasn't on your
whole bean menu board.
How about a review of Mexico Chiapas
in one of your threads?  "

The Mexico Chiapas coffee obviously comes from the Chiapas growing region of southern Mexico.  The Chiapas state in Mexico is a little smaller than South Carolina, and it sometimes called a perennial rain forest, with a stunning natural tall biosphere.  The forest area has jaguars, flying squirrels, monkeys, white-tailed deer, tapirs, toucans, and parrots.  This also the poorest state of Mexico with the highest rate of malnutrition said to affect up to forty percent of the population.

Our choice to buy this coffee for your own kitchen at home is not just about buying a high quality coffee, but it is about bringing good things to a poor region.  Everywhere that Starbucks does business, it works very hard to get farmers to be a part of C.A.F.E. practices.  This is more than just paying the farmer better than an average market rate – Starbucks already does this, but rather it is about building schools, improving a region, and getting medical care to very poor farming regions.  That is why this blog is called ‘For the love of Mexico Chiapas’.  Drink and enjoy with all your senses, but you can buy with your heart too.

Now back to the coffee tasting event on President’s Day, February 15, 2010, and First and Pike Starbucks:  This was a classic Starbucks coffee tasting; learning about how certain coffees pair with foods.

So we’re told, Mexico Chiapas coffee is described as crisp and nutty with a round body complemented by such flavors as hazelnut and milk chocolate. The two baristas (Jeremy and Heidi) who planned this coffee event, compared the Organic Shade Grown Mexico coffee as well, also grown in the Chiapas region of Mexico.

Our host baristas paired the seasonal Mexico Chiapas coffee with hazelnut creme Piroshky with flaky buttery pastry purchased from Piroshky, Piroshky, “nutty” and “chocolatey” chocolates from TCHO Chocolates, caramelized Oregon hazelnuts atop dark chocolate hazelnut praline, with dark chocolate, called the Moonstruck ”Conquistador Hazelnut Praline” from the Chocolate Box.

I watched, camera in hand, as the two baristas educated a group of about seven curious customers about how to pair these coffees and foods.  The largest surprise came with the Piroshky, Piroshky which, upon paired with Mexico Chiapas brought out an incredible buttery tone to the coffee.  Almost unanimously the group preferred the Mexico Chiapas seasonal coffee over the standard Organic Shade Grown Mexico.  The Organic Shade Grown Mexico coffee was paired with Beecher’s cheese curds and Aged Gouda.  The cheese pairing was in direct contrast to the nuttier flavors being explored with the Mexico Chiapas coffee.  Aged Gouda was a surprisingly wonderful pairing with the Organic Shade Grown Mexico. Aged Gouda has some nutty notes to it, complementing the Organic Shade Grown Mexico.  It was pretty cool to hear the group of customers ooh and ahh at how the foods paired with the coffees.  The Beecher’s cheese curds were a hit, as they always are.

Two customers who stayed for the entire tasting, from start to finish, both completely agreed that the TCHO Chocolates brought out a rich, complete and dark sweetness to the Mexico Chiapas coffee.

With this food pairing with the coffees, one gets a chance to explore some favorite local haunts of Seattle’s Pike Place Market.  I really have to recommend a visit to Beecher’s, if any reader is taking a trip to Seattle soon.  One can watch the cheese being made right there, and they make the best macaroni and cheese in the world.  And then it is a very short walk down Pike Place to the first Starbucks at 1912 Pike Place, or up the hill to First Avenue downtown where you will first the First and Pike Starbucks, the location of this coffee tasting event.

This was a great chance to see how food can change the perceived flavors of a coffee, enhancing natural flavors in different ways! That’s an art all to itself, knowing how to pair coffee and food.

And now it’s your turn.  What’s your favorite seasonal coffee and have you tried this one? What did you think?

If you like this blog post, you may also enjoy the following:

• Shared Planet:  An introductory lesson on coffee sourcing
• Arabian Mocha Sanani – Your introduction to a coffee cupping at 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea
• The Magic of Sumatra and Aged Sumatra

Foods ready to go

Ready to go!

SampleCupsAreReady

Everyone grabs a cup

JeremyTalksAboutCoffee

Heidi talks about pairings

Customers participating

Heidi talks about pairings-2

Pages 2 and 3 of the 1992 Shareholder Report

On June 26, 1992, Starbucks corporation was born.  Here is your chance to browse through every page of the first annual shareholder report, in its entirety.

The very first annual meeting of shareholders was held at the Four Seasons Hotel in downtown Seattle, on Friday February 19, 1993, at 10:00 a.m.  Every year, Starbucks has held annual meetings and produced annual reports. The next meeting is March 24, 2010 at McCaw Hall in Seattle.  For your enjoyment, I’ve uploaded every page of the very first annual report produced by Starbucks.  This precious document is not mine, rather I borrowed it from my best friend, who stumbled upon it recently as she cleaned out some boxes. Notice that in 1992, Starbucks operated a total of 154 stores.

And for a related blog entry, you can look at a few shareholder cards here:

• Events in Seattle: Annual meeting of shareholders

Pages two and three of the report include a letter from Howard Schultz to the Shareholders. I’ve included it as the icon picture for this post.  However, in case some are having difficulty reading it, here it is as follows:

TO OUR SHAREHOLDERS:

Every successful business has its competitive advantage.  At Starbucks we have two: Our coffee and our people.  Since our inception in 1971, Starbucks has been based on an unrelenting (some would say fanatical) devotion to providing its customers with the best possible cup of coffee.  One indicator of this passionate commitment is the question we ask ourselves whenever we assess our efforts: are they as good as the coffee?  Our retail stores are intended to be environments worthy of housing the finest coffees which nature and skilled human labor can provide.  Dedication to quality, in the cup, is what Starbucks is all about.  Many of the specifics that make our company seem unique to others are, to our way of thinking, simply natural, even inevitable, consequences of this core attitude and aspiration.  Quality coffees are grown, roasted, brewed, by quality people, and the welfare of the people, the planet and product are inextricably linked.  Our “employees” are called partners, and this is literally true, since every individual is offered stock options.  We seek to seamlessly interweave variables that ensure quality for the customer with literal ownership in the company.  We want to be the employer of choice in each market in which we do business.  In order to achieve this goal we pay fairly, provide benefits to all whether part-time or full-time, and encourage individuality and open communication.  Our environmental commitment begins with recycling and conserving wherever possible.  We donate coffee locally in every market, providing homeless shelters and hospices better coffee for free than many of our competitors offer at full price.  We are also entering our second year as the West Coast’s largest corporate donor to CARE, the international aid and development organization.  Starbucks, together with its customers, funds CARE programs in the coffee producing countries of Indonesia, Kenya and Guatemala, with an emphasis on disease prevention and increased literacy for children.  This year has been an exceptionally rewarding one.  We achieved sales of $93,078,000 which were up 61.5% from 1991.  We opened 53 new stores, including ones in our newest markets of San Diego, San Francisco and Denver.  Also, we earned $4,104,000 after tax which represented a 70.4% increases versus a year ago.  Lastly, Starbucks’ entrance into the world of publicly-owned companies this June was profoundly significant, both within the company and for the specialty coffee industry as a whole.  It is an affirmation of our leadership position, but it is first and foremost a powerful demonstration of what can result from the joining together of great people and great coffee.

Howard Schultz

chairman, president, and chief executive officer

Seventeen years have gone by since this first annual shareholders’ report was published.  Where are we seventeen years later? Where has Starbucks stayed true to their aspirations and where have they strayed too far? I invite constructive and civil conversation. Enjoy browsing through each and every page of  this important piece of Starbucks history!

(Thank you Molly of Seattle Custom Framing for her assistance with the photography in this blog entry).

Cover-1992-ShareholderReport

InsideFrontCover

Pg-1-1992-Annual

Pg-2-1992-Annual

Pg-3-1992-Annual

Pg-4-1992-Annual

Pg-5-1992-Annual

Pg-6-1992-Annual

Pg-7-1992-Annual

Pg-8-1992-Annual

Pg-9-1992-Annual

Pg-10-1992-Annual

Pg-11-1992-Annual

Pg-12-1992-Annual

Pg-13-1992-Annual

Pg-14-1992-Annual

Pg-15-1992-Annual

Pg-16-1992-Annual

Pg-17-1992-Annual

Pg-18-1992-Annual

Pg-19-1992-Annual

Pg-20-1992-Annual

Pg-21-1992-Annual

Pg-22-1992-Annual

Pg-23-1992-Annual

Pg-24-1992-Annual

Pg-25-1992-Annual

Pg-26-1992-Annual

Pg-27-1992-Annual

Pg-28-1992-Annual

Pg-29-1992-Annual

Pg-30-1992-Annual

Pg-31-1992-Annual

Pg-32-1992-Annual

BackSideCover-1992-Annual

1992-Report-Pages4and5

1992-Report-Pages6and7

1992-Report-Pages8and9

1992-Report-Pages10and11

Welcome to your first Starbucks barista art contest at StarbucksMelody.com.  In a previous blog entry, I featured artwork drawn by a downtown Seattle barista.  I’m really convinced that there has to be a lot more of this hidden wonderful talent in the Starbucks stores.  I’m on a mission to find it.  That’s the goal of this contest. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE AN ARTIST OR A BARISTA TO PARTICIPATE:  All you have to do is go snap a photograph of barista-created art and follow the rules listed below!

In order to make the contest worthwhile and entice people to join in, the prizes will be FOUR grand prize winners, each winning a $50.00 Starbucks gift card.  But there are a lot of rules!! Please read carefully!

All the rules are numbered 1 through 20 below:

1. All entrants must be in the United States or Canada or the UK.
2. No barista artwork featured can be produced with stencils.
3. All art work must have been on display inside a Starbucks store within the past 90 days of this blog entry.
4. The art work must be on a standard Starbucks chalkboard. This is not an oil-painting, or watercolor or some other kind of art contest.
5. All entry photographs become property of StarbucksMelody.com, and you agree that they may be featured in a future blog post at StarbucksMelody.com.
6. All entries must be received no later than 6:00 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time) on Monday, March 1st, 2010.
7. All entrants must be over 18.
8. In the event that the same art gets photographed twice by two different people, the person who submits it to me first in time is credited with the entry, and the later in time entry is void ab initio.
9. Enter by emailing me a photograph of the artwork at Sbux206@StarbucksMelody.com.
10. All email entries must include a first and last name, and a mailing address for a prize in case you’re a winner.
11. IF, you have a twitter profile, please include that in the email too.
12. No entry can be a photograph smaller than 200 x 200.
13. All entries must be a “jpg” file format type.
14. All entries must include the store information (store address, and store number too if possible) where the art work is on display currently.
15. If the person submitting the entry is the barista who did the artwork, please speak up and say so!
16. You may submit more than one entry.
17. Winners will be picked entirely subjectively by “Starbucks Melody” deciding what she likes best.
18. Again, no stencil art!
19. No person may win more than one $50 gift certificate.
20. Void where prohibited by law.

Good luck! This may be an experiment in terror! We’ll see how it goes!! Hopefully people will join in.  Also, please spread the word of this great contest! Those are generous prizes!