Espresso News and Reviews – TheShot.coffeeratings.com

Slate Magazine published an article today that posed an interesting question: Do coffee shops discriminate against women? – By Tim Harford – Slate Magazine. The crux of the article is economic research [PDF, 364kb] performed on eight Boston area cafés where the researcher compared the customer service times based on sex, age, race, drink type, [...]

Today’s Chicago Daily Herald published a sort of barista confessional by Kerry Lester, detailing some of the professional oddities and insights of working in a Chicago Starbucks: Daily Herald | A former barista spills the beans. Whether it’s continually smelling of coffee, getting hit on by customers, learning how to live in a regularly over-caffeinated [...]

Today on Agoravox, a European citizen journalism portal, a poster wrote an article about the growth of Starbucks Coffee in Europe: Starbucks; the coffee giant blending in Europe – AGORAVOX – The Citizen Media. Over the past few years, the chain has proliferated in Paris, the UK, and a multitude of other European locations as [...]

A vitriolic, and very funny, Starbucks barista went off the handle recently in a post on the Chicago Craigslist. Craigslist unfortunately removed the rant, but it has been preserved at Starbucks Gossip: Starbucks Gossip: Starbucks barista: We’re not your friends (but your tips are appreciated). The heavy-handed rant — which skewers everything from upscale latte [...]

This outlet of the L.A.-based chain is located on a busy Fillmore St. corner, lined with popular sidewalk café tables and parasols. Inside there are a dozen more tables and a lot of finished, wood grain surfaces — giving it the look of a cheaply remodeled kitchen. There’s even this raised platform in the back [...]

Opening just this month, this café was started by The Rogers Family Company (perhaps best known for their ‘inorganic’ and dirt cheap San Francisco Bay Coffee Co. beans, available at Costco) and other investors. It’s heavy on the Fair Trade organic coffees, and that’s just where its social causes begin. They heavily brand their devotion [...]

Today’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette featured an article (syndicated from the Wall Street Journal) that documents attempts to unionize at the nation’s Starbucks: Do hot coffee and ‘Wobblies’ go together? Starbucks ranked #29 on Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list, and they are very sensitive about their brand image and integrity with consumers. This [...]