I like coffee, a lot. I drink it every day, all day. But as it is with so many other things here in post-millenium America, a lot of people can’t be satisfied just enjoying a cup of good coffee. They have to turn it into a culture and yammer on about “bouquet” or “citrus overtones,” shell out tips equivalent to the price of their beverage, and tap their foot in 4/4 time to the 5/4 time signature coming out of the sound system.
And what a bunch of smelly, nouveau-rich, pop-culture mock-elitist bullshit the article below is. You’d think that a breakfast sandwich was on par with ass, to warrant a position as shallow as this.
As for “atmosphere” – well, Starbucks, Inc., I like your coffee, but I find it virtually impossible to either read or chat with free-form jazz blaring out of the speaker over my head. I know another writer who routinely goes to McDonald’s for his personal “coffee/idea sessions,” specifically to avoid the distracting nature of the Starbucks “atmosphere.”
Irony of ironies, that worldly philosophers, painters, and writers of a bygone day, if brought to the present, might choose somewhere other than Starbucks to hatch their world-shattering ideas (there’s a short story in that – go ahead and use it). Possibly even because they couldn’t get sausage on a roll, there.
Starbucks: Ooh, That Smell
What’s that smell!?
If that is what you were thinking when you walked into a Starbucks recently you are not alone. Analysts agreed on Thursday that the smell of warm breakfast sandwiches is causing a major brand crisis for the coffee giant.
“The warming breakfast aroma is its biggest problem, overwhelming the coffee aroma that Starbucks views as critical to its experience,” said Bear Stearns analyst Joseph Buckley.
Added JPMorgan analsyt John Ivankoe: “We will welcome the removal of this food … because in certain cases the stores did in fact smell like cooked processed food, and not at all like coffee….”
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Things That Stink 