Shirihoudai

I’ll take an extra-hot-venti-soy-double-shot-espresso-caramel-macchiato-no-foam please. . .

[Begin rant] In an ideal world, that drink wouldn’t exist. Unfortunately, it does. Welcome to Starbucks! The pusher of the $4 coffee (upwards of $5 if you get it all pimped out like some sugar/caffeine addicts). With it’s green, black and white cozy surroundings, just seeing those colors will draw you in for your much needed caffeine fix - hmm, just noticed that this site shares those theme colors as well. Note to self: change the colors of this site. But why do so many people like Starbucks? If you asked them, they probably couldn’t give you an answer. But I have my theories. . . .

There is a Starbucks on every corner of every intersection of the world. I do not use the word “every” very often in stating a fact, but in this case it is 110% true, maybe even 200% if you count Taiwan. It was their plan to take over the world, one street corner at a time.

Step 1: Oversaturate the market until the consumer only sees the green, black and white cups of steaming brew. Remember that Tom and Jerry episode where they tape open Tom’s eyes and force him to watch propaganda on tv to brainwash him? It’s kind of like that.

Step 2: Slowly warp the roasting process that you learned from the folks at Seattle’s Best Coffee and start serving inferior coffee to the customer.

Step 3: Introduce $3 lattes (This is the only drink I order from Charbucks, by the way).

Step 4: Profit!

Step 5: Buy out your competition. I can still find my SBC coffee at Border’s bookstores, so take that!

This plan was genius! I’ll explain. Before Starbucks, most people had 2 options for coffee: regular or decaf. Since most people don’t drink decaf, that leaves just the regular cup of joe. Here is the great part of their plan. Serve inferior coffee, in this case, make it taste burnt. Put up little signs in your store that advertise your latest $4 espresso based drink. Double genius now that I think about it - get them on the espresso kick addiction as well. Since their espresso + milk creations are much milder in taste than their coffee, anything alive will be drawn to it rather than having to gulp down the bitter and bile brew. Empower the customer into thinking they can have their coffee their way (perfect) - of course the customer is paying more for their drink, but they don’t care as long as it’s the way they (so they believe) like it.

Soon everyone who needs a pick me up in the morning will be flowing into your store. Introduce drink after drink. . .fraps for the kids to get their caffeine addiction going early, even serve fake green and chai tea drinks for the anti-coffee tea drinking hippies. Go international and sell your inferior brand of coffee everywhere since most countries’ coffee tastes like ass in the first place. There was a time when people laughed at the $5 cup of coffee (no refills) in Japan. Don’t seem to hear that anymore.

Interesting (unresearched) fact: 90% of Jamaica Blue coffee is exported to Japan. Somehow I never found a shop that served it!

Starbucks stock has fallen in recent months and they re-hired their original CEO to correct things. Still, their dominance over the coffee market is still strong as ever. As long as the coffee drinker remains lazy and needs their quick fix located right around the corner, Starbucks will live on.

[end rant]

Now something good to say about Starbucks - the shop in Shibuya, Tokyo

Although the coffee only comes in one size, you get great views of the wackiest intersection in the city. Green light, cars crossing.

Red light, people crossing!

Just one of many wonderful sights from the barstool seat that is near the window on the second floor:

And another just so you don’t think i’m lying: