I may not like Starbucks’ coffee, but I rarely have received nasty service if I have to go to one (need caffeine at the time) and they do treat their employees well…
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So would anyone care to comment on their love for, or loathing of, K-Cups and their ilk? I’ve never tried them and would like to hear what the consensus is among coffee lovers.
Crappy, expensive, bad for the environment but if nothing else, easy. And still better than Nescafé.
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You’re never gonna believe this… It’s “McFlurry” (макфлури)
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On corporate and other non-coffee issues, including this weirdness, Starbucks veers between mildly and awfully awful. Who even knows what this Olympics nonsense is about, although in a flat-out shittiness campaign, I’d bet on NBC or the IOC before Starbucks. Still, it’s anybody’s race.
But you know what? If there’s one thing in the universe I’m qualified to be a snob about, it’s coffee, and Starbucks coffee–the actual fluid itself–isn’t shitty. It’s not the best out there by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s more than good enough to drink if you intend to drink coffee. (Credentials: eight years in grad school in Madison, WI, home to more artisanal coffee roasters than you can shake an artisanal coffee roasting device at. Also three Starbucks, IIRC.)
Of course, that’s just, like, my opinion, man, and there will be other people who don’t share it. Not a problem. I hate eggplant, and not for any objectively defensible reason. But taken as a whole, anti-Starbucks coffee commentary (again, the fluid itself) has a sort of, how shall I put this, audiophile tone to it, combined with a dash of classism and more than just a little drive-by judgmentalism. It’s not good, it’s just familiar and comfortable. Oh, the HORROR of the familiar. The disgusting COMPLACENCY of it, when a bleary-eyed video engineer editing his 93rd luge run of the day could be out sampling exotic brews made from the rare Siberian ice-coffee plant.
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For me, the bewildering thing about this whole deal is that they went to all this trouble to import what is ultimately pretty shitty coffee.
[SNOBBERY INTENSIFIES]
As punishment for the privileged elitist wankery, I condemn you to six-hour old McDonalds coffee.
(tbh, our local McDonalds have Gaviña and tends to be brewed fresh, so it’s okay)
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Sorry to disappoint you. Sloppy is as sloppy does.
I’m not a coffee snob by any means. I’m probably the least snobby. I mean, heck, I just made a pot of coffee with a drip coffee maker and tap water using store-brand beans. To make it less foul, I put a dash of salt in the filter and to make it more interesting I put a couple of peppercorns in it and ground it all up in a whirling-blade grinder. Because I’m groggy, I’ll be drinking this all afternoon. If all I had was a big can of Folgers, that’d probably be okay, too.
Having said that…part of the reason I’m not a coffee snob is because about the only non-truckstop coffee we have in my area is Starbucks, where the help expects you to know what you’re ordering, and a few privately-owned coffee shops that are even snobbier. Thank you, but no; if I have to know what I’m ordering before I’ve ever experienced it, cram it.
[ANTI-SNOBBERY SNOBBERY INTENSIFIES]
Oooooh! Get you with your home-ground artisal sea salt peppercorn coffee.
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Sorry…next time it’ll be a 20-year-old can of Beaumont Coffee, brewed weak enough to look like tea.
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Indeed. If it was just about coffee, any good coffee competently prepared would do. This is about a very specific flavor of candy, at least that’s what most of their drinks seem like to me. And, far be it from me to stand between someone and their candy 
I don’t know if “homesick” is the right word but it’s weird how it works. I’m not a huge ketchup fan, don’t use it too often on my fries. But when I ended up in Berlin in the middle of a 10 week trip away from the states, I went to a hard rock cafe that sold fries and used imported heinz ketchup… couldn’t get enough of it. I’d get an order of fries and damn near emptied the bottle by the time I was done.
It’s not that I don’t like german food, the eating was excellent over there. I just really wanted something american.
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They didn’t go to all this trouble to import coffee. They went to all this trouble to advertise Starbucks. Duh…
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But at least the Quarter Pounder with Cheese is “РОЯЛ ЧИЗБУРГЕР” , which as Vince from “Pulp Fiction” could guess, is “Royal Cheeseburger”
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Starbucks is for people that want to drink coffee but don’t really like the taste of coffee.
Now show us how to say señor mcflurry. Сэнйор мкфлурри?
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That’s why they have a “Coffee of the Day” selection on their menu. At least they all do where I live.
(Personally, I love good coffee, like I love good food, and I find the “Starbucks is crap” and “it tastes burnt” comments to be mostly bullshit. (I also love dark-roasted coffees, which people who don’t like them have a tendency to descibe as “burnt-tasting.” ) There’s definitely a scale, and it all depends on what you like and what you’re willing to pay. Past a certain point…chacun à son goût.)
Dash of salt in the filter, eh? Got any more tips to make my store-bought beans taste better?
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We got one as a gift several years ago… Incredibly convenient – especially when entertaining (I get a few variety packs from Amazon, so that everybody can pick their poison). Most people seem to actually like the swill that flows out of the machine – I have only found a few selections that I don’t mind (mostly k-cups that are not k-cups – no plastic cup, just a mesh basket). Much too expensive, however, the non-k-cup ones are a bit less expensive since (I assume) they don’t have to pay a licensing fee. I have several different “use your own grind” cups that produce decent coffee. (my default methods are french-press and aero-press)
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When you’re a long way form home in a land where you may not even be able to read the signs and where criticizing the government or liking the wrong sort of sexual partner can still cause you to “disappear”, a familiar place, even if not the best, is a very welcome thing.
After a week once hiking the back country in the high Sierras, a McDonald’s burger tasted better than I would have thought possible.
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