Posts from — January 2008

If you thought there weren’t nearly enough coffees being created from animal dung, now we have Jacu Bird coffee from South America. Like the palm civet that creates Kopi Luwak coffee, the Jacu flies through Brazilian coffee plantations picking (in theory) the ripest coffee cherries and passing the seeds undigested, which are then collected, cleaned, sorted, and sold.

INeedCoffee.com has some amusing commentary on the advent of this novelty coffee:

The Kopi Luwak has sold at prices up to $300 per pound, so at around $12 per pound the Jacu bird is passing on the savings. If you are daring, invite some friends over and let them compare some crappy beans to the store bought varieties. Think how good you’ll feel as you’re helping the wildlife in South America. Sure, we want to support the bird-friendly coffee movement, but is this going to too far?

As you may or may not know, Starbucks–in their continuing all-out war on the trade language–has recently taken to branding some of their drinks with what they call the “skinny platform”. Now when you order a “skinny drink”, you get not only skim milk but sugar-free syrups and no whip, or other similar modifications depending on the What this means is that, just like calling their smallest coffee “tall” to make it sound like you’re getting more for less, they are distorting yet another piece of coffee lingo to mean what they want it to mean, deliberately confusing customers and the rest of the industry and counting on their ubiquitous branding to shift customers’ perception and alienate them from competitors.

But it seems not everyone at Starbucks is toeing the company line…some baristas are rebelling against the move. Starbucks Gossip has printed a mini-manifesto from one such barista in New York:

I would like to say that I think this decision is a poor one, and, at the risk of being reprimanded for insubordination, I will not be following this new method for calling and marking. I feel as though there are several flaws that will cause confusion, frustration and, potentially, a waste of product and time for partners, and far worse, alienate both partners and Starbucks customers. I’ve composed a detailed list of problems that can and, more than likely will, arise from the “Skinny platform.

1) We have been trained since day one to follow a specific method of drink calling/marking. Changing it up now will cause FAR too much confusion. For all stores, high volume stores in particular, this can severely impact speed-of-service, drink quality, customer satisfaction, labor, and product usage. Miscommunication between customers and partners, partners calling drinks and partners making drinks, and partners making drinks calling the drinks to the customers waiting to receive their drinks will inevitably lead to drinks having to be discarded after being made, customers becoming angry and impatient, assuming it is employee incompetence…