h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hey, yeah, it's an old post, but that's ok. You live in Seattle? You're very lucky, I hear it's beautiful.

You're right, except that Starbucks won't use Fairtrade as their espresso any time soon. Not because they don't want to, but I heard that there isn't enough high quality fairtrade coffee to put into every store. Hey ho, keep asking though!

i've contributed to this thread in the past, but what gets up my nostrils about snagbucks is not their effect on the southern hemisphere, but on the north. one outlet in your town is ok (if you go in for that kind of caffeine milkshake) but when you see them every 100 meters and they position themselves as the microsoft of coffee, it gives me pause. thank god their product doesn't appeal here!

wow i didn't realize that many people absolutely hated starbucks. personally everytime i go i get a caramel apple cider and one of the cookies and i have a fine time. incidentally, how could they not have starbucks in australia? i know they have starbucks in hong kong.

no, starbucks does not brew fair trade coffee daily but they do pay way higher prices for their coffee than the majority of coffee buyers. in some ways they may not be doing everything they possibly can to help the coffee pickers out but in some ways maybe they are. Starbucks claims to be trying hard to balance profitability and benevolence and i believe they have and are continuing to prove themselves in the benevolence area. if starbucks were not profitable they could not continue paying such high prices for their coffee, could not donate money to the good causes that they do and could not offer the awesome benefits that they do to their part time workers (how many places do you know that offers part time workers benefits, much less really good benefits)

also people keep saying that they would rather support small local companies but the vast majority of these are doing way less community projects and doing less to help the coffee farmers because they don't have the resourses to do anything about it. starbucks was once the underdog local place but now that it has grown large people assume that it is better to support the local business before they research starbuck's positive impacts on the community and the world. this is sad.

one more thing, i am a barista for starbucks and i probably do seem a little stuck up in the way i sometimes correct customers on the way a drink is said or 'called' i try my best to just inform customers so that they can know the quickest shortest way to get what they want but sometimes i can come across as though i have a superiority complex. i made a woman very frustrated and sad the other day when i tried to explain the terminology to her. I felt really bad and tried to apologize and drop the subject. one of the reasons we call the drink a certain way though is to simplify it so that all of the details of the drink get heard by the person about to make the drink so that you get the latte the way you want it! if the customer says the drink in the manor we say it there is less chance for screw up and more speed of service. you say it quickly, we say it quickly, it is made quickly and you are on your way and happy, get it?

lyon just got their first snagbux, it's just across the street from my daughter's dance school so i've had a good look at it... it was packed the first couple of weeks, but since then it's leveled off... after all, it's only coffee!

in grand island nebraska and points worse, a good cup of coffee can indeed be a source of great wonder; i had a cup of their normal drip coffee once on the road in the states and must say it was much better than the usual american offering, which often looks more like tea than coffee.

but here good espresso is already available at 1829 establishments. as for coffeeish caffeine delivery systems with caramel, cinnamon or whatever added...

as for the jargon...

if people like SB, that's OK. but for those that don't, it's disturbing to see them open like mushrooms (1490 of them in london, from kensington to shorditch i'm sure it's physically impossible ever be more than 50 meters from one).

but it's the world that's gone wrong, not the paper-cup multinational whose name i avoid speaking when possible. claude lévi-strauss speaks for me when he contemplates the destruction of species, the ravaging of nature, including human nature, the prison modern man (who could be called homo automobilus, homo fenestrius or... homo starbux) has perpetrated on himself, as monotonous as it is poisonous, and sighs, "i think of the present, and of the world in which i am finishing my existence. It's not a world I will regret."