Starbucks buy good green coffee. We roast close to 20 million pounds a year and compete with them for a lot of the same sources. Actually, they are trying to engulf and devour coffee sources we're spend years developing. They know green coffee and they throw a lot of money to get it. Talk about a 240 million pound gorilla.
The fault, if you want to call it that, with Starbucks is that they made a decision to roast the coffee just short of incinerating it. Part of that is to mask differences between crop years (as was already noted by Topher) and also source countries and regions. It is not only flaws that get masked, but the character of the coffee itself. Branding requires consistency and that requires giving up individualism.
The marketing value of dark roasting is to create a distinctive taste. Distinctive does not always mean the most agreeable. If you read the history of Hershey's you'll find that to differentiate from European chocolatiers, Mr. Hershey used milk gone sour. Starbucks coffee - same thing. Distinctive is good. Unless you don't like the taste of spoiled milk or carbon. But then you'd be eating the chocolate for the chocolate and drinking the coffee for the coffee, which bring me to my next point.
Ounce for ounce, Starbucks sells more milk than coffee. Most people are not there for what the coffee tastes like. They are there for steamed milk, whipped cream and toffee sprinkles. Really?
No, not really. People (and there are a lot of them) go to Starbucks because it is Starbucks. They get drinks with a big wazoo of whipped cream on top to find a way to enjoy the experience. Sugar and milk fat. Yummy.
What do people like about Starbucks? Feeling like they "made it." They think Dunkin' Donuts is for people with dirt under their fingernails and who live in suburbs - people who have the look of bridges and tunnels. Starbucks sells a fantasy of accomlishment. Affordable luxury.
Is that going "wrong?" It is a fantasy. Disneyworld in a coffee cup.
A word on their oversaturation and the joke about opening a Starbucks in the bathroom of a Starbucks. If you read their annual report, they accept up to 30 percent cannibalization store to store.
On a final note. For those who remember it, there was a variety show in the 1970s called the Donnie and Marie show. It was a top rated show and they sold millions and millions of records. And then, all of a sudden, they were a joke. Ratings plummeted. The show went off the air. No one will admit they did, but somebody watched the show. Somebody bought the records and posters and other junk.
What is triggers the transformation of a top rated show into a joke? When people come to realize the emperor is not wearing any clothes. I'm sure that question may haunt the dreams of Starbuck's execs.
