Starbucks Coffee

I enjoyed my Tanzania Clover at the Renton Village store this afternoon.    Clover seems to be the best way to get really fresh coffee at Starbucks.  

So the Clover is the answer to all our requests for variety? We'll be able to more coffee choices than ever before?  Cool!

Any way to get more espresso blend choices?

Thank you for listing the 10 Seattle locations!!!

Now if they'd get them and the other locations listed on the starbucks.com site.

does this FINALLY mean that SBUX is going to stop wasting shots of espresso? now what about cold brewed espresso for frappuccinos and all other iced coffee beverages?

Hi JavaOcha,

The Clover Coffee brewing system doesn't change how Starbucks espresso shots are pulled.

I know I've seen your posts where you're vexed by seeing shots of Starbucks espresso going down the drain at the bar, because 2 shots are pulled where only one was needed.

The baristas pull two shots because you get better quality this way.  But though it seems wasteful, it really is not.  In considering the ways that Starbucks uses a ton of money, each one of those espresso shots doesn't represent much.  At the end of the day, you should see the baristas clean the espresso bean holders! All the unused beans get poured into the trash so that they start fresh every morning! But even that is probably not nearly as significant as the cost and expense of other items at Starbucks.

Seriously, each time a customer grabs a handful of napkins, when only one was needed, this is probably much more expensive to the company than one shot of espresso. Mea culpa here too. I admit I'm guilty of this!  I cringe when I hear on this site of baristas who write a latte order on the side of a paper cup, when it's going to go into a personal cup! That is wasteful. Paper cups do add up.

The Clover totally brings some passion back into the COFFEE side of the Starbucks business.  If all you do is order a latte, or a mocha, then perhaps the introduction of the Clover won't mean much to you at all, in all honesty.

When I discovered Starbucks, it was the place I drove to to buy my coffee beans for home. They were scooped out of bins, and measured out (in any increment, and not just one fourth pound increments like now! Argh!), and I took them home.  Later on, I realized that there were these lines forming around an espresso machine, but I was clueless about that because I never gained an addiction for lattes.  I would walk in and find the whole bean register, and get my beans and go.

And then one day, there was no more whole bean register, and it was all one line, and it dawned on me that most people wanted a "latte."  I didn't understand why and I started to go to Starbucks less and less for a while. The lines were long and I just wanted some beans.

Now, FINALLY, Starbucks is recapturing some of that early 1990s magic with very small batch, high quality, coffee beans at stores that have a Clover.  It's romantic again.

^ That is what the Clover is all about.

As for iced-coffee, Starbucks uses Terazzo (sp? Someone help me here) in their stores.  The coffee base for a frappuccino comes from Italian Roast.  That too probably will be unaffected by the introduction of the Clover.

No, the Clover is for those people (like me) who want to really INDULGE in a unique coffee experience where you pick up a cup and you smell unique strong aromas that are almost sexy and beautiful, and you close your eyes and you're carried away by a panoply of flavor.  

Wow weird. Why did I come up as Anonymous? Above post written by "Downtown Seattle Melody."

JavaOcha

While you can make cold brewed, sun brewed and even room temperature brewed coffee, espresso, by definition, requires hot water & pressure.

Please comment on quality of the Clover coffee.  Is it better than drip, more or less as good, or hard to tell because they are not using standard blends in Clover?

Also what's the pricing premium?  

Would I do just as well to get a French Press pot of Verona?

Thanks,

Art

"But though it seems wasteful, it really is not." -how is making more than you need and then throwing the excess out NOT waste??? especially considering that you are a coffee shop and you're throwing away espresso??? if i was a coffee farmer and knew you were doing this, i'd be so pissed. by doing this you (the company) are giving them (and your customers) that you really don't give a crap about their product or their hard work. is the quality really THAT much better? i'd personally welcome a slightly less quality espresso if i knew one shot wasn't being wasted... and if i choose to take the extra shot, you rob me by charging me for the extra shot that would otherwise go in the trash. you need to decide which is more important, a SLIGHT difference in quality and keeping customers who care about others and not being wasteful or a slightly higher quality product that i'm sure most people wouldn't even know the difference in and loosing customers.

There was an excerpt in my state paper about Starbucks getting the Clover brewing equipment. At first, I was excited for the. But there was also a mention that Starbucks would no longer sell the Clover to other coffee shops. I really hope my paper is wrong, because if this is true, it is my opinion that Starbucks has lost some of its soul. I respect independents across the nation and local coffee shops too much to continue buying coffee at Starbucks if this is true.

Just a quick question. The other day I saw a barista  struggling with a customer who wanted to know if the new coffees (the small batch offerings) were all fair trade. It was clear to me the barista was unsure of the answer. My understanding is that since the limited and exclusive Clover offerings are mostly from very small farms, a number of them are both Fair Trade and Organic - For example, I thought for sure that "Brundi Ngozi" was an example of this.

Would an idea partner please weigh in on what is fair trade and what is not with respect to the Clover coffees?

Thanks!

Melody

This sounds like potentially a home run.

But...

1.  How good is the coffee?

2. What is the pricing?

Art

With such few stores having or getting the clover machine I think the above statement "Clover is Here" is a little misleading.

Aimee, any company that "takes coffee seriously" would never consider, let alone adopt, Pike as their only brew at most stores after noon.

You don't need Clover.

You just need to return to your old policy of brewing a bold and a mile.  

Easy.

Sumatra - wonderful

Verona - wonderful

Gazebo - wonderful

Pike - horrible.

RE CLOVER:

Why do you not test the Clover in THE NY TRI STATE AREA?

Sorry about the caps, but as this must be one of the most profitable markets for Starbucks! We seem to get new things last. Also we are creating many unhappycustomers in that we no longer brew bold all day. Even though we brew it now until about 2-3, a lot of our customers work late shifts etc. Giving a shot for the pikes does not make all people happy. In these tough times we need innovations in NY. Not to sound like a snob, but NYC IS the center of the world please do not forget that!!

lance 32

PS Just because the company is testing Clover in seattle and Boston should not preclude the Tri state area. there is more competition these days so we need the latest and greatest in NY. Also our business is down big time due to a new store less than 1/2 mile away. Why should the partners be punished for your expansion, ie less labor hours, a 100 percent reduction in tips, and closing with 2 people. With todays's tragic Wall Street Mistakes, we need to be sure that we are not next. The days of overexpansion and growth have stopped, we need to cultivate our existing business, rather than creating a SITUATION THAT MOVES BUSINESS FROM ONE LOCATION TO ANOTHER. NOT BEING MODEST, MANY INVESTMENT TYPES TELL ME THAT OUR STOCKS DROPPING IS A REULT OF CORPORATE GREED. ie, lets NOT FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF Michael Douglas in "WALL STREET" Where  he said "GREED IS GOOD" AS the character Gordon Gecko. Concentrate on rebuilding our core business, and not trying to become aTARGET STORE, WE CANNOT BE ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE.