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Another post on a Kim thread that has absolutely nothing to do with the Empress herself:
Well, as for those who Starbucks coffee strikes as "taint-ed", you can't argue about taste. To prove that, in a recent Consumer Reports survey of coffees, Starbucks ranked number 8 out of two dozen or so, well below Costco's "Kirkland" coffee.
However, the following data is strictly empirical:
1) Starbucks uses more of their coffee (two tablespoons per 6 oz. water versus 1 tablespoon for 4 oz.) than pretty much every other coffee shop.
2) Starbucks has spent more money on roasting and brewing innovations than every other gourmet coffee company combined.
3) If you take a small sample of coffee from almost any other coffee shop you'll notice how's it's transparent. You can see the bottom of the cup through the liquid. You cannot see the bottom of the cup through a small sample of properly-brewed Starbucks coffee (excepting Light Note and Breakfast blends, they're for the Dunkin' Donuts crowd).
As for my tastes, I have found a number of cafes that care more about coffee than the average bear and offer a cup that's as good as Starbucks. However, in all my dedicated searching in Montreal, Quebec; Burlington, Vermont; Los Angeles and Orange Counties in California; and Brooklyn, New York, I have yet to come across a cup of drip coffee that tastes better than Starbucks' Arabian Mocha Sanani, Organic Shade-Grown Mexico, or the Africa Kitamu Blend. Having said that, however, I'd much rather give my money to people who genuinely need it rather than feeding the Starbucks machine. If only there was a decent local coffee shop on both sides of every corner.
I hear you sharpening your knives, or maybe that's just the opening of "Having Never Written a Note for Percussion".
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