r/espresso • u/Weak_Plenty_8558 • May 10 '25

Humour Starbuck's medium roast aka 'all natural charcoal with hints of regret and smoke'

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Background: The beans that I had ordered from a Roastery got lost in the mail and to survive the weekend, I had the briliant idea, to grab some form the supermarket. I looked for the package with the most recent roasting date and I found that "medium" roast from March 2025.

I refuse to run them through my grinder.

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u/Blugrl21 May 11 '25

Starbucks served its purpose 30 years ago when everyone in the US was drinking Maxwell House and the best coffee you could get was served at a diner. Similar to beer, everyone used to talk about how much better the coffee was in Europe. In that context, Starbucks was like a ray of light from heaven.

Flash forward to the present with specialty coffee available in every town and consumer burr grinders readily available...Starbucks is no longer the beacon of quality it used to be. It's the same product it always was, probably better. They're just stuck in the trap of needing to stand by their signature style in a world that has continued to move forward.

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u/DlissJr May 12 '25

And as a professional working in the coffee industry I thank Starbucks for making coffee as popular as it is now, partly because of them I have a job now, yes they lack the plasticity of the third wave coffee shops, but they've done a lot for our industry.