![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfs
Corporatized Cafe Artist In A Box
Sadly, I found yesterday that Starbucks, which has routinized coffee, has also given us pasteurized processed cafe-artist product. The seemingly hand-drawn chalkboard illustrations found at your corner Starbucks are paint-by-numbers stencils with guidelines that make it absolutely impossible to create anything other than the official pictures that the corporate office approved.
I really shouldn't be nonplused about this. This is the company at which the return of the original CEO, Howard Schultz, was heralded with much fanfare. Schultz gave a speech where he complained that Starbucks had lost its soul. The tight, flavor-preserving vacuum packaging robbed the cafe of its roast coffee smell. Robobarista machines that made it impossible to make a bad cup of coffee also made it impossible for any cup to be distinctive and interesting. Starbucks sells caffeine in a beige room full of comforting music.
Howard Schultz's innovation to "restore Starbuck's soul?" Instant coffee. Like the Instant Artist, it's just not real enough.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-05 07:08 pm (UTC)I admit to spending too much money at Fivebux on a regular basis*, but from this, i can attest that on the same machine, in the same store, one person will reliably produce a latte` that is delicately flavored and perfectly balanced, and another person can make me a drink that tastes like the beans were roasted by an inexpertly wielded hand-held blowtorch.
*I have rationalized this by claiming that an outlay of $4 a day is supporting the economy. This is my story, and i'm sticking to it.**
**at least until a better one comes along.