Say the word "Starbucks," and what comes to mind? An array of holiday lattes, or a monster corporation of empirical proportions? Maybe it's a half-stunned admiration for those who pulled it off. With upwards of nine thousand stores worldwide, Starbucks is our country's frame of reference for coffee. Ask the average joe to define "macchiato," and the ingredients will include caramel.
Say the words "cutting edge," and conjure a deluge of ideals surging on the crest of third-wave coffee. "Starbucks" is not among them. For a Seattle-based chain that claims to sell the finest coffee in the world, it simply doesn't fit among those sounding the depths of coffee potential. Still, with a shop on every corner, Starbucks is there. It's huge. It's the elephant in the coffee bedroom.
Last winter I got to know the elephant. For three strange months I worked two jobs at opposite ends of the coffee spectrum. The first was the only Starbucks in Towson, MD equipped with a drive-through. The second was 'Spro Coffee, the only cafe within a hundred miles of Baltimore surfing the third wave with all its might.
Living between them, I couldn't help but lose myself in a ceaseless rebounding of contrasts. Yet my experience wasn't just a scoreboard of pros and cons. It was weirder than that. I was fascinated by what each shop chose to prioritize in their pursuit of success. I was startled by the gap between what they thought and did.
How could I make sense of it? Their ideals were identical. Everything else was worlds apart.
I took a seat at a long table, opened my Starbucks training manual, and immersed myself in corporate ideology. Inside the cover was a note that said I couldn't divulge the contents to outsiders, because it's secret. Suffice it to say the manual brought out the satirical cartoonist in me, and I only got through with the help of several witty ballpoint cows.
What topped the weirdness was the slogan in my "coffee passport" (a cupping diary), "It's not the finest coffee in the world until we roast it." Printed in the same pamphlet is the fact that it's not the coffee we're tasting, but the roast. The carbon. Rather than aiming for that elusive sweet spot, roasting to maximize the potential of an individual coffee, Starbucks goes dark. Maybe that's not weird until you realize how many people make it their mission to discern and achieve quality, how passionately they do so, and how well. Cup of Excellence, for example. Starbucks succeeds at many things, but "finest" is not one of them.
My trainers returned to explain some pillars of Starbucks philosophy. There's only one job title in the store: partner. That's because the team isn't supposed to feel like a hierarchy. "I'm not your trainer," my trainer said; "I'm your learning coach. And the store manager's your partner - he's not your boss."
"Except I'm your boss," the store manager dead-panned. I laughed.
Yet I was impressed by how sincerely everyone believed what they said. They didn't just work for this company; they hailed it. Where Starbucks ideology struck me as silly, they found it credible and true.
I was handed a green apron, which I donned with a blur of confused feelings. In that moment, I became one of the hands and feet of Starbucks: a cultural icon.
My learning coaches drilled me on drink recipes, I marveled at the fool-proof super-automatic, then we built a latte. They didn't like my technique. "That's nice for a slow shop," they hedged, "but you won't have time to steam milk like that here."
"I've worked fast shops," I protested, but to no effect. They filled a 64oz pitcher, set it on the tray, and hit the button. The wand blew furiously into the white bath before cutting itself off. "Check this out," one coach grinned, spooning foam onto his shots. "This is a cappuccino." He weighed it on the scale as proof.
"You should see him on drive-through," my other coach said. "He can bust those out faster than anybody."
I cringed, wondering if I'd be able to do it. To use a 64oz pitcher though someone had ordered a mere 12oz. To hit the button and turn my back. To ladle foam when I knew how to pour. Heck, to build a 20oz drink on a measly double-shot.
My shift done, I walked several blocks up the street and climbed the public library's renowned spiral ramp to the top floor. There I met Jay Caragay for my first day of 'Spro training. Jay has a sonorous voice, the kind you like to listen to, and I came determined to extract from him everything he knew about espresso. He got me started dosing and distributing, and for the next few days I did nothing else. Only once I'd succeeded in producing a basket of exactly 20g, ten times in a row, could I proceed to tamping. Then it was several days again of pushing the tamper on a scale to ensure thirty pounds of pressure - eliminating variables, so when it came to extraction, the difference between heaven and hell would be but a nudge on the grinder.
Different planets. Welcome to the surreal.
Quality. Customer satisfaction. Technique. I heard these dictums in both places, with the same fever-pitch of passion.
Both stores were vehement about technique. Stirring a drink was forbidden at Starbucks; baristas were allowed to swirl only. Recipes were precisely defined, and non-standard drinks weren't tolerated. Customers would let you know if their cappuccino was too heavy. Meanwhile, technique at 'Spro revolved around good shots. Next, good milk. Next, presentation: as you slid the cup across the counter, logo and latte art had to face the customer, with the handles of cup and demi-tasse spoon on their right.
Both stores emphasized customer satisfaction. Starbucks defined "an enthusiastically satisfied customer" as one who continues coming back for nine years, as opposed to a satisfied customer, who comes back for only five. 'Spro didn't define the term, but the meaning was clear. "When people walk out of here," Jay told me, "I want them to think, 'That was enthusiastic f*ing good service!' "
Starbucks claimed a no-compromise on quality. Meanwhile they ground coffee in advance, extracted short shots, steamed and re-steamed milk in huge volumes, sold bagged tea, and brewed it all at boiling. Under the selfsame banner, 'Spro was grinding on demand, spending more time on extraction to arrive at the right flavor balance, steaming a small quantity of fresh milk for every drink, selling loose-leaf tea brewed at various times and temperatures, making their own syrup, and building the 16oz latte with more shots than Starbucks used on their 20.
They used the same words, and sincerely. So why didn't they have anything in common?
The clearest answer I could find was that at 'Spro, quality came first; profit, second. They were willing to take a financial blow in order to arrive at excellence. At Starbucks, while they cared about quality and didn't talk profit, cost-efficiency was definitely first. A subtle difference perhaps. But it put a chasm between them.
Jump the chasm with me.
You walk into Starbucks, enter your code in the register and drop your things in the back, where you choose your apron. A few friendly faces call hello, then your shift leader deploys you. "Not the box," you whisper, and like as not, it's the box. Either you stand at the computer in headphones, saying the same lines more times in an hour than you can bear to admit - or you're on bar, busting out drinks five at a time.
They say to rinse your glasses and wipe the wand with every use, but in the crunch, that's luxury. You keep 64oz of whole and 64oz of skim pre-steamed at your side. You glance at the screen and pump syrups into a line of cups you've just marked. You dump in the shots, ladle your foam, then hold it back with the spoon while you pour. Top it with whip cream, a drizzle of sauce or a dash of powder, cap a lid on that, then it's out of your life.
I enjoyed working bar better than anything else in the store, but I didn't believe in the product. As long as I was making drinks, the refrain "It doesn't matter" wound through my marveling mind. Whether the shots are good or evil, the sugar will overwhelm them. Whether the milk is exquisite or sudsy, the whip cream will veil it. As long as you spoon the correct amount of foam - be it fine-tuned and silky, or the texture of bubble bath - your customer won't notice the difference. Above quality's baseline, speed is the crucial, and only factor.
Despite my nihilistic mantra I couldn't help but care, which made this exercise a painful one. After my shift I would snag scarf and cloak, climb the street to the library detoxing, and sign in at 'Spro. Jay would ask how Starbucks was, but I'd be oddly speechless. He'd muse a while admiring what Starbucks has accomplished as I'd begin dialing the espresso grind to my touch. The evening would stroll by with occasional bursts, and life would seem normal again.
"Can I have a grande caramel macchiato?" someone asks.
"Our macchiato is only 2 ounces," I answer. "I could make you a caramel latte, though."
"Well - what's the difference?"
Golden question. All the difference in the world. I explain what a macchiato is, then our variation. The customer is interested. We talk about lattes and cappuccini. She's stunned that our cappuccini are only 6oz: 1/3 espresso, 1/3 milk, and 1/3 froth, period. She lights on an item from our menu. "What's a caramel solstice?"
Another golden question. She wants to experience this tiny garden of Eden, and I produce one.
"Is this a Starbucks...?" she asks.
"Oh - uh. No."
Why does Starbucks cut the corners?
I suppose being that big, and making that much, demands it. If you want to ship coffee to nine thousand stores, you'd better roast it dark or it'll be too old to serve when it gets there. If you want to handle their in-store volume, you'd better work out a way to keep the decanters full, foamed milk at ready, and shots coming like clockwork. If a worldwide reach is your goal, that's what it takes. That said, Starbucks rises to the quality-challenge with admirable efficiency. Let's not be snobbish. While it's not "cutting edge" third-wave coffee, it is a different kind of cutting edge. The drive-through is on the rise, and hot sandwiches are in.
Weirdly, I couldn't communicate to my Starbucks "partners" that 'Spro was a whole different breed of coffee. I'd try to sketch the tactile differences, but their eyes would cloud over, bored, or worse, offended. And I could never find the words to tell Jay why Starbucks bothered me. I'd try to explain how the green apron unnerved me, or why the place felt so different, but Jay never affirmed those subtle dislikes. He'd absorb them mildly and take nothing for granted. Whatever I was trying to pin down, my words defeated themselves as they left my mouth.
Jay refused to look down on Starbucks, maybe because it had nothing to do with him. Why bother making fun? If Starbucks wants to sell fast-food coffee, let it.
It seems that quality and profitability sit at opposite ends of a seesaw. Without one, the other can't exist, and it's up to the business owner to decide how to weigh them. Starbucks maintains a consistent standard on a worldwide level. Shops like 'Spro pursue quality at its summit, offer their customers a drink they've never tasted before, and pay the price. Can you build a worldwide store and still boast about the view from quality's peak? I don't know.
Why do you need to?
Third-wave espresso is about quality. And coffee potential. It's about finding out how far it can go - not how big we can get. The values that drive Starbucks push it off our radar.
Not to say the elephant has left the building. Anyone who gets into espresso will encounter many who "think coffee" in the language Starbucks invented: "tall" and "grande" instead of 12 and 16oz, to say nothing of the recipes that Starbucks put on the map. That's not so bad. Fact is, coffee-shop culture is ubiquitous because Starbucks popularized it. We might not be doing this if Starbucks hadn't come first.
Of course, if Starbucks has "parented" us in any respect, this is one of those "I will not turn into my mother" kinds of things.