Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Hi Allison
I'm sorry if you thought my comment was directed at you. I agree that not enough people take Starbucks seriously. They do so many charitable things and really are environmentally and socially conscious so that it makes it hard to actually consider an alternative. No way the local shops can afford to pay for the coffee growers health insurance...or have as much of a committment to recycling as *$ does. And the volunteer programs are incredibly generous. When I said "stop complaining" I was referring to some of the other comments.

I think the term "small batch" is pretty relative in this case, granted I'm not sure how small the "small batches" really are, but they are in limited qualities in contrast to the large amounts of the regular packaged coffees they sell.

Additionally—I suggested cuppings as a way for people in the coffee industry to take Starbucks a bit more seriously. so many of us disregard Starbucks as a viable coffee option, but the fact is, a lot of the process of selecting coffee for the stores is such an intense process made by some really knowledgeable people. I haven't seen any cuppings in the NYC area but I'd love to start seeing them around. NYC stores are usually so crowded it's hard for me to imagine how a cupping would actually work. I'm into the more proactive approach so I'd love to start seeing some of these popping up around the city to get more minds wrapped around how coffee cuppings are just like wine tastings.. and they can be just as popular if approached in an accessible way.

I though they already had a super automatic machine before the Mastraina, the ones I see at Safeway with the more square hopper lids? Why buy new machines then close down a bunch of stores 6 months later because of budget costs? It would have been easier to tell that machine manufacture to take a hike. Like what are they going to do?

"I suppose when you have over 150,000 employees working in stores with such a high turnover rate, the time, effort and maintenance required for a manual machine isn't worth it. Pushing buttons cuts down on hours in training time, leaving employees to study recipes and milk steaming methods." As a former Starbucks employee, this sentence mocks my position... true I worked on the La Marzocco machine, but it make us Starbucks Baristas out to be fast-food McDonalds employees.

I find Seattle's Best to be the most ironic name--I'll stick to Lighthouse... then Vivace, Cafe Vita, and Herkimer all have both SBs beat by a mudslide.

I was a barista for a few years and miss using the La Marzocco machine. My weak left wrist is a constant reminder of those days.

Cuppings or comparative tastings?

Every coffee wonk has it in their head that layman consumers are going to want to slurp, spit, make rude noises, and go through all the machinations coffee professionals have used for years to taste for defects.

Meat inspection might be a fun social game in your social circles, but not mine. A comparative tasting will do just fine instead.

@robmareel & @jonathan: thanks for the feedback. glad you guys enjoyed it.

I think the small-batch coffees will make their way out of Seattle and some of the other Clover markets, they're rolling them out slowly.

This has been a pretty cool series. Here is an interesting iPhone app that came from Starbucks Baristas' frustration with large group orders. Its taking over the coffee world.

http://www.exectones.com/apps.php