Starbucks hot drink vending machines

4-28-2008 @11:51PM John said... starbucks, tim hortons, blenz, secondcup, seattles best, all these places are the fast food of coffee. Starbucks is an amazing business but besides drip coffee (which I think is too dark a blend) their drinks are nothing close to what coffee making is capable of. Just a few examples of companies in Vancouver that destroy any place are these

http://cafeartigiano.com
http://jjbeancoffee.com

One thing you can look for to find out if a place knows what their doing is if their putting latte art in your cup. If you don't know what i'm talking about here's an image http://www.vmunix.com/mark/blog/wp-content/latte-art.jpg. no... this doesn't mean that the coffee will 'taste' good. but it does mean they micro-foam their milk, which is the process of sweetening the milk and texturizing it. When you texture milk its the difference between the thickness of paint and water, it's smooth and the espresso infuses into the milk. All these drinks that starbucks introduce work for them because most people have this idea that coffee is bitter and strong, so they enjoy 12oz, triple shot, non-fat cinnamon vanilla lattes because it hides the taste of this terrible coffee.. but the truth is, coffee, especially espresso is smooth and beautiful and actually tastes like how it smells...if, it's made properly.
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7-11-2007 @4:56PM Sandy said... Sorry, Josh--but as a coffee aficionado (I roast my own beans and have a semi-pro espresso grinder and machine--the kind that DOESN'T do everything but ring up the tab) you should know that not every bean takes well to the kind of dark Vienna-to-French roast that Starbucks uses for practically everything but its Light Note blend. (And it brews that one double-strength in-store so their unsuspecting customers will nonetheless get that "dark Starbucks taste" they associate with the brand). Some of the best coffees NEED a lighter (City-to Full City) roast to bring out their best--dark roasting carbonizes rather than caramelizes the bean's sugars, and only the heaviest-bodied varietals (or cheaper or staler beans) benefit from it. Take a look at the pull date on any bag of Starbucks--it's anywhere from four to TWELVE months post-roasting! Coffee should be used within a month of roasting, and espresso within two weeks at the VERY latest--3-7 days is the ideal! And it should NEVER be ground until you are ready to brew it. That's one of the reasons Starbucks roasts so dark--it makes it harder to tell a bean has gone stale, so it extends effective shelf life.

The espresso-and-milk-based drinks are not up to snuff not just because the shots are pulled in advance but because they have gone from real baristi using separate grinders and hands-on machines to barely-trained workers running superautomatics that grind and brew shots at the push of a button; and to steam they just stick the pitcher underneath the spouts until they get overcooked bubble bath foam (that has to be spooned atop the drink to make a cappuccino, a practice that drives purists nuts).

Now don't get me wrong--some coffees, like Sicilian-style espresso blends and Indonesian varietals and blends, do marvelously when dark-roasted. And Foalturds is indeed execrable coffee (and when none too fresh, Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme can be just as awful, regardless of whether light or dark roast). But be aware that in a dark roast, you're tasting more of the roast than of the properties of the bean itself.

I remember Starbucks in its infancy in Seattle--it sold ony coffee, tea, chocolate, spices and coffee supplies, NOT drinks. That didn't come along till Howard Schultz bought the company and traveled to Italy, discovering how coffeehouses could be neighborhood reading rooms and gathering places. At first, they took great care to train baristi and used separate commercial grinders and multi-group machines ("automatics" that premeasure only water volume, not superautos). But when they began to expand beyond their freestanding shops into kiosks, the available pool of trainable skilled baristi was not large enough, and they had to serve drinks rapidly to large numbers of people--hence superautos that could be operated by the less-skilled.

Want to taste a REAL espresso or proper cappuccino or latte (with milk steamed so perfectly that you'd swear it was sweetened)? Seek out the REAL coffeehouses in your city and patronize them faithfully. And if you find a Starbucks or B&N with a real barista who will make your drink from scratch and not overfoam and cook the milk, tip him or her LAVISHLY.
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