This is a pretty amazing thing for a company as big as Starbucks to do. Read the rest

A little birdie sent me this photo and said I couldn't reveal its source. It's the recipe** for the new Crystal Ball Frappuccino drink, which debuts in Starbucks shops March 22.

We see some deliciousness in your future 🧞‍♀️ #starbucks #crystalballfrappuccino #lynbrook

A post shared by Lynbrook Starbucks (@lynbrook_starbucks) on Mar 19, 2018 at 11:33am PDT

Coming this Thursday... 🔮

A post shared by Florence Alabama | Starbucks (@florence_alabama_starbucks) on Mar 19, 2018 at 5:04am PDT

**Well, most of it. You'll need an actual crystal ball to fill in the details on the rest of the page.

Thanks, little birdie! Read the rest

YouTuber Dave Lee starts off his video review by saying that he went into Starbucks during the holidays to get a cup of coffee and was soon persuaded by their heavy advertising to buy an $80 Ember mug*. Read the rest

A woman was escorted by police out of the Walnut Creek, Cali., Starbucks after berating a Korean student there for speaking her own language. Read the rest

With Christmas quickly approaching, the imaginary war on everyone’s favorite imaginary holiday always helps me get in the spirit.

The latest Christmas offense is from Starbucks’ recent marketing campaign and “suggestive” coffee cup promoting the LGBTQ community.

A commercial unveiling the cups briefly shows two women drinking coffee and placing their hands together while across a table in what is an “obvious” attack on our nation’s faltering morals. The mind-numbing outrage is only being furthered since Starbucks decided to place a pair of unknown hands gripped together that many are debating belong to a same-sex couple.

This so called “gay agenda” that Starbucks is said to be pouring down our coffee-addicted throats has given rise to another series of boycotts for the coffee giant, according to the New York Daily News.

Via the New York Daily News:

Starbucks hasn’t resolved the issue of whether the hands are same-sex or not.

The theme of the cups is “Give Good.” Customers are invited to color in the drawings of hearts, presents and a Christmas tree — and those hands.

“Each year during the holidays we aim to bring our customers an experience that inspires the spirit of the season,” the coffee chain said in a statement. “And we will continue to embrace and welcome customers from all backgrounds and religions in our stores around the world.”

I'm always exhausted after ordering at Starbucks. Not only are there a million different ways to make a coffee over there, but you need to know all of their code words to get the exact coffee you want. Tall (which means "small"). Venti. Trenta. Frappuccino. Americano. Flat white. Skinny. Dry. Bone dry. Etc etc. And now there's more to add to the list: Pepper Nitro with a Jerky Twist.

Decoded, a Pepper Nitro with a Jerky Twist consists of: "Congo coffee, slow-steeped as cold brew and served on draft through a nitro tap, then infused with a sweet and savory malted fennel black pepper syrup. The beverage is topped with a layer of honey cold foam and finished with a sprinkling of cracked pink peppercorn and a bamboo skewer of natural beef jerky made with grass-fed beef," according to Starbucks.

But the drink, which sounds more like a tasty dinner appetizer, is only offered at the Seattle Reserve Roastery, and as a specialty cold drink, it might not be around for long.

Image: Starbucks Read the rest

In 2008, Starbucks publicly acknowledged that the plastic coatings it used on its paper cups made them impossible to recycle using the kinds of equipment deployed by municipalities around the world, and kicked off an annual competition to improve the cup design -- but five years later, it shut the competition down, went on using the unrecyclable cups, and adopted the line that the world's taxpayers should foot the bill for upgrading recycling plants to accommodate its cups. Read the rest

Japan-based food vloggers Simon and Martina try the only Frappuccino drink that comes with its own pie crust lid. Read the rest

#trump supporter in #miami @Starbucks attacks & threatens patrons & staff bc coffee took too long, blames anti-white "discrimination" pic.twitter.com/HRj9EahrMy

— jorge de cárdenas (@Jbdcl) November 16, 2016

Slow coffee service at a Miami Starbucks launched this gentleman into a racially based tirade. Apparently this is now America's answer to everything.

Via @jbdcl

We already understand you prefer horizontally recorded video of racists. Thanks! Read the rest

Oregon artist James Landgraf designed a cute little “Dabuccino” water pipe that looks like a Starbucks Frappuccino. He made 500 to sell, but Starbucks was not amused, and successfully sued him for "trademark dilution, trademark infringement, and copyright infringement." Bummer. Read the rest

When a tornado destroyed this Starbucks in Kokomo, Indiana on Wednesday, there were reportedly more than a dozen people inside. After store manager Kim McCartney called employee Angel Ramos to tell him about a texted tornado warning she'd received, he rushed everyone into the bathrooms. A few minutes later, a tornado destroyed the building leaving only the bathrooms intact. Amazingly, nobody was injured.

“I could see the sky from holes in the bathroom ceiling, so I figured there was some chunk of the store that would be missing,” Ramos said in a report posted on Starbucks.com. “I didn’t know it would be the whole thing.”

Read the rest

Unreal. Starbucks in Saudi Arabia refused to serve women. Note on their door, plus official response from company. pic.twitter.com/d4tCSqqQOv

— Muhammad Lila (@MuhammadLila) February 3, 2016

The Starbucks café in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia has a sign on the front door barring women from entering. Starbucks will accept their money, but only if the womens' "driver" places the order on their behalf.

From the Express Tribune:

The notice, in Arabic as well as English, reads, “Please no entry for ladies, only send your driver to order. Thank you.”

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the most influential law enforcing authority in the Kingdom, ordered the café’s management not to admit women, according to Emirates 24/7.

Starbucks issued the following statement:

Starbucks in Saudi Arabia adheres to the local customs by providing separate entrances for families as well as single people. All our stores provide equal amenities, service, menu, and seating to men, women and families. We are working as quickly as possible as we refurbish our Jarir store, so that we may again welcome all customers in accordance with local customs.

#Starbucks store in Riyadh refused 2 serve me just because I'm a WOMAN & asked me 2 send a man instead@Starbucks pic.twitter.com/6Nj6DkOtFJ

— Manar N (@manarn8) February 1, 2016

Fedor Selivanov / Shutterstock.com Read the rest

A Starbucks barista named Brad describes a guy who bought 365 Starbucks gift cards and registered each of them with a different birthday so he can get a free drink every day. That's already a dick move, but the guy makes it worse by being a real jerk to the barista. When he comes in to the store he asks for a Venti cup and a marker and writes instructions on the cup before handing it back:

He draws lines and arrows and writes all over the cup while telling me: “Two pumps of white mocha here, then add five pumps of vanilla. That should take us to this line here where you’re gonna add cold heavy cream up to this ridge here...it should be halfway between this line and this line. Make sure to add the heavy whipping cream before the espresso, it changes the taste if you do it out of order. Then add your four shots, three regular and one long shot. That long shot is important, since you guys reformulated your machines, it’s been Hell trying to get my drink right. That long shot helps balance it. Then stir it for me, Mister Brad. Now do me a favor and add ice to the top there and it’ll be easy as pie. I’m not picky so don’t worry about shaking it or anything like that.”

A drink like this is normally $6.50, which would make it ineligible for the free birthday coffee, so he instructs the barista to ring it up as a "one quad espresso, add white mocha, sub vanilla, sub heavy cream."

Read other "Stories of Horrible Restaurant Customers" at Kitchenette. Read the rest

Cheryl Kingery of Davis County, Utah says she ordered a cup of coffee from Starbucks, but was given a serving of Urnex cleaning solution instead. This caused esophagitis, as well as nerve damage, Burning Mouth Syndrome, loss of taste and more. The incident occurred at the Clinton, UT location in 2012 and has cost her over $186,000 in medical expenses and lost wages so far. She expects that "future economic damages will exceed $1.3 million." Starbucks is investigating, saying "The safety of our customer is our highest priority." Read the rest

Cotton Candy, Caramel Cocoa Cluster, Lemon Bar, Cinnamon Roll, Red Velvet Cake, Cupcake. These are the six new flavors of Starbucks Frappuccino that are sure to get your insulin busy transporting glucose into your adipose tissue. Two of the new drinks, Cotton Candy and Lemon Bar, contain no coffee.

Caramel Cocoa Cluster: toffee nut syrup, coffee, milk and ice and topped with a layer of dark caramel sauce, finished with whipped cream and a drizzle of mocha sauce.

Cinnamon Roll: cinnamon dolce syrup, white chocolate mocha sauce, vanilla bean, coffee, milk and ice, finished with whipped cream and a sprinkle of cinnamon dolce topping.

Cotton Candy: vanilla bean, raspberry syrup, milk and ice, finished with whipped cream.

Cupcake: vanilla bean, hazelnut syrup, milk and ice, finished with whipped cream.

Lemon Bar: lemonade, vanilla syrup, milk and ice, finished with whipped cream and a sprinkle of caramel sugar.

Red Velvet: mocha sauce, raspberry syrup, vanilla syrup and frappuccino chips with milk and ice, finished with whipped cream.

[via] Read the rest

If you live in New York, San Francisco, or Seattle, don't expect to see a cappuccino listed on the Starbucks menu. The hot espresso-with-foamed-milk drink is disappearing from the mega coffee chain's listed items, although if you order one a barista will still serve it. And why take one of the most basic (and my personal favorite) espresso drinks off the menu? Although Starbucks hasn't yet explained, some speculate it might be because cappuccinos are harder to make in larger sizes and can easily be confused with lattes. Thus Starbucks might be phasing them out and "replacing" them with the stronger "flat white."  For more details and conjecture, Business Insider has the skinny (as in latte, not cappuccino). Read the rest

Monitorhead sez, "I was sitting in my car, staring at a 4-day old empty coffee cup, when I made the connection. Holy cow! Has the #Occupy movement already seeped into the marketing firms (thinking of the cool/hip ads from the late 60's, early 70's, thanks to the hippie movement), making this a hip commercial/cultural observance?"

I can't remember if previous Starbucks winter cups had the same imagery, and even if it's new, it could be a coincidence (or an unconscious homage). But still, it's awfully striking.

Occupy Starbucks? Read the rest