Posted by TheShot on 06 Dec 2010 | Tagged as: Café Society, Foreign Brew
We love a good dose of sarcasm now and then. We’ve also been known to slag on McCafés while praising the coffee standards in Australia. So we had to highlight this sarcastic gem from Australia’s The Punch today: G’day from the McCafe…. Have a nice day! | Article | The Punch. Apparently Oprah Winfrey is [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 15 Mar 2010 | Tagged as: Beans, Consumer Trends, Starbucks
Thanks to a helpful reader who today pointed out this find to us: Just Bottled: “Firelit” Blue Bottle Coffee Liqueur – Ünnecessary Ümlaut. If Starbucks is good enough for the booze bottle, why not Blue Bottle Coffee? Apparently that’s the question asked by the folks behind Firelit, a new coffee liqueur made from Blue Bottle [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 16 Oct 2009 | Tagged as: Beans, Consumer Trends, Home Brew, Machine
A little over two years ago, we lamented the state of populist retail home espresso by reviewing what we thought was one of the better options at the time, the Nespresso C180 Le Cube: The Home Espresso Machine Blues: Rating today’s state of consumer espresso machines. Besides having a name that sounded regrettably familiar to [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 07 Sep 2009 | Tagged as: Beans, Café Society, Consumer Trends, Local Brew, Machine, Quality Issues, Restaurant Coffee, Starbucks
For the better part of a year, a running gag from the casual coffee lovers who know me is to ask, “So have you tried McDonald’s espresso yet? How does it rate?” Mostly they ask as a curious, sick joke — knowing that I subject myself to the worst kinds of coffee punishment. But now [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 25 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: Local Brew, Restaurant Coffee, Starbucks
It’s tough to be a newspaper man these days. Having run out of tiresome video game and comic book themes, they’re now making Hollywood movies out of bloggers. It seems that anyone with a Twitter account can also get a book deal — ironically celebrating the very media format it supposedly deems irrelevant. So we [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 26 Nov 2008 | Tagged as: Beans, Fair Trade, Starbucks
As Starbucks‘ future looks ever bleaker and bleaker, CEO Howard Schultz continues his maniacal lever-pulling atop Starbucks’ runaway corporate bulldozer. After shedding themselves of music, movies, and books, they’ve tried everything from an online suggestion box and free coffee promotions to membership cards to less expensive (“daily”) roasts and smoothies. Mr. Schultz’s latest lever pull [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 11 Sep 2008 | Tagged as: Quality Issues, Robusta
Whether it’s coffee or Slow Food Nation (or both), today there’s a strong public undercurrent of knee-jerk, reactionary dismissiveness of anybody who dares suggest that the generic brand-X-in-a-can isn’t good enough for them. The mistaken public belief is that most of the things we eat and drink today are somehow normal, inevitable, and “natural” outcomes [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 13 May 2008 | Tagged as: Consumer Trends, Restaurant Coffee, Starbucks
Starbucks Coffee has spent the last decade squandering away whatever market leadership they had in the world of quality coffee, and it’s no secret that they are now trying to regain some of these losses. But to do so in recent months, Starbucks has bizarrely looked to McDonald’s for inspiration: introducing $1 “daily coffee”, free [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 04 May 2008 | Tagged as: Consumer Trends, Local Brew, Restaurant Coffee, Starbucks
Last week, the Contra Costa Times published an article announcing the Bay Area arrival of McDonald’s specialty coffee drinks: McDonald’s new coffee drinks ignite breakfast wars – ContraCostaTimes.com. Of course, none of this info is really new, so we’re a bit perplexed over how someone can “ignite” something with a two-year-long fuse. But the article [...]
[view full post]Posted by TheShot on 11 Apr 2008 | Tagged as: Café Society, Consumer Trends, Foreign Brew, Starbucks
What a strange newsweek it’s been in the coffee world. The best way to characterize it?: What’s old is suddenly new again. Tuesday we had Starbucks’ latest cry for attention/help/suicide prevention with their mysterious “04.08.08″-on-a-lame-paper-cup campaign. Essentially, the publicity stunt announced the launch of their “new” Pike Place Roast and a “new” return to the [...]
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