Set My Coffee Free!

So, today I’m going to throw a perfectly good rant about nothing. Nothing new there (well, actually this is my first post other than the book review, so, I guess it is new… but it’s a sign of things to come so get used to it.), nor is the fact that it will probably cheese off a healthy portion of the internet… and probably 90% of the blogosphere.

And a good number of my friends.

And my mom.

So, I hear the question reverberating across the ether: What, good blogger, is this topic that vexes you so? Ah, I say. Well, good patrons, let me tell you in a vague and roundabout manner.

I, in point of fact, despise Starbucks.

You gasp.

How, you say in breathless indignation, can any self-professed coffee lover dare to breathe such sacrilege? Starbucks (bowing and scraping here) is the quintessence of coffee! And that… is the reason I hate Starbucks. They have ruined the entire concept of coffee and the coffee house with their mass-produced, ‘overroasted,’ ill-prepared beverages masterfully served by under-trained, ill-informed, trendy high schoolers who care as much about preparing coffee as they do cleaning behind their ears.

To be sure, I could tolerate even that.

The real shame lies in the fact that due to nothing more than mere mindshare nearly every American coffee consumer believes Starbucks to be the truest and most sublime form of the Arabian brew on simple merit of it’s being Starbucks.

Well, the hard truth is, nothing could be further from reality.

Okay. Some things could. Such as orange elephants or perhaps John Cougar Mellencamp winning an Oscar. But, I digress.

Starbucks uses only the finest bargain-basement beans, scrupulously avoiding Fair Trade sources, carefully burnt (they prefer the term “over-roasted”) in huge batches and shipped across the country to be generically brewed and dispensed into your highly over-specified semi-coffee beverage.

Now, this may come as a shock to Starbucks regulars, or those whose primary experience with coffee comes from vacuum-packed bricks of pre-ground coffee bean substitute, but coffee is, when prepared properly, a naturally sweet beverage. The flavor of fresh coffee is more complex than wine, with over 900 flavor compounds. And this… is why I hate Starbucks. Not only have they tarnished the American consumer’s concept of a good cup of coffee, but they have made it very difficult for those that provide decent coffee to succeed. Why, the coffee at Intelligentsia can’t be all that good… it doesn’t taste like Starbucks!

Ugh.

Rant finished. Begin flame war…

…now.

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