The PROBLEM With Starbucks Coffee

Starbucks coffee is a giant in the modern coffee sphere and the brand has become a symbol for the coffee shop experience we know today. But... is the coffee even worth the trip out of your house to get it?

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Script: Holly Maley
Editor: Kim Su
Project Manager: Lurana McClure Rodríguez
Host: Levi Hildebrand

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[dsari]

Yeah nah, luckily Starbucks failed miserably here in Australia, especially in Melbourne. They can’t compete with our amazing local coffee shops and cafes, not just price but also quality and experience. A massive win for the local business owners.

[ShayanGivehchian]

Starbucks is the fast food of coffee. What really grinds my gears is the fact they are priced the same as a local coffee shop and act like they make high quality products

[skylarjon]

Starbucks has actually gotten so expensive it's cheaper to just go to the high-end local café two blocks from my house! Thanks Starbucks, if it wasn't for your outrageous prices I wouldn't have tried anything better!

[makennarudolph]

As an ex-Starbucks employee, the entirety of the company is all talk, no walk. They may switch over to more environmentally-friendly cups for a week, just to say that they did it, but they don't even pretend to care about that stuff behind the scenes. They like to brag that they made "the third place" and are gods amongst modern-day coffee shops but they don't care about their customers or workers even a tiny bit. It's all about numbers. I worked there for a little over a year and I have never felt more disrespected, humiliated, and disposable than when I was a Starbucks employee.

[Autofill]

I would pretty much like an in-depth view of the "environmentally friendly" certifications since so many brands nowadays take advantage of eco-friendly products.

[beemcbuzz]

Starbucks failed terribly here in Slovenia. Part because we already got coffee shops literally everywhere, partially because our coffee culture is so different from american ones. Also the price of a Starbucks coffee was so high no one bothered when you could go to any coffee shop and get a coffee for 1-1.6€.

[arnavkamath]

Starbucks is the only job I’ve ever worked at where I talk to a millionaire and a crackhead at the same time, all three of us being exploited by this corporation.

[MikeKilo]

I’ve always thought Starbucks coffee tasted burnt and thus avoided it. Later I watched an interview where the owners admitted to accidentally over roasting their coffee and liking the flavor. So my suspicions were confirmed saving me enormous amounts of time and money.

[MegaTech]

Used to work at Starbucks back in the Philippines. On our first week, they taught us to reuse the used coffee grounds served that day (they're always thrown in their own separate trash bags) by leaving them out to dry overnight. Come the next day, morning shift would bring those grounds back in and use them as the base for frappes. They told us that we were saving the environment so that we wouldn't have to waste any new beans. I was pretty young then so I ate all that up and it wasn't until I worked at a specialty coffee shop did I realize how horrifying that actually is.

[UnknownTimeLord]

I'm a barista at a small "third wave" specialty coffee company that works directly with the farms they get their beans from, and our menu is very limited, it's just coffee. Even then nearly every day people will come in and order a "venti white chocolate mocha", a "grande caramel macchiato", "a latte with 3 pumps vanilla", or frappuccino's, with so much confidence and only a glance to our menu. I have to constantly explain to customers that we are not Starbucks and don't have those drinks or sizes, and a Starbuck's macchiato is a latte, all of their drinks are a latte... There are multiple Starbucks within about a mile from my shop, but yes our coffee is better because we are constantly dialing in to taste and still use manual espresso machines; but once you put in all the sugar Starbucks' people expect, you can't tell the difference.
This type of customer orders our Geisha heirloom-bean pour over just to flood it with milk and syrup, smh.

Starbucks is ruining coffee because it's become the norm/ baseline people expect and it's making it harder for specialty coffee shops to be successful because they assume every coffee shop must have what Starbucks has. Plus, they usually make a face when they have their first sip because they can actually taste coffee in their drink, then ask for more syrup.. It's like going to every burger chain and ordering a Big Mac because McDonald's has it then getting upset when they suggest something of higher quality.

[anthonyguerreiro]

I worked for starbucks and thought the CAFE model I was forced to learn about seemed fishy to begin with. Making their own certification of ethicality and giving themselves basically the perfect score year after year

[JonuhOfficial]

Hey I’ve been working at a Starbucks for 3yrs now. All I can say in honesty is in my store and my partners, we are people too! We are tired, overworked, understaffed and underpaid 🥲 at least at my store. I genuinely love my coworkers and making coffee and love my interactions with Customers. I DO BELIEVE OUR COFFEES AND FOOD ARE WAY OVERPRICED 💔😓

[darcygall]

Australian coffee culture is completely different. Starbucks hasn't caught on here, and because of waves of Italian immigrants in the 50s and 60s, we have a unique coffee culture that revolves around espresso coffee and relies a lot on individual suppliers! One of my favourite coffee places has a direct connection with a coffee farm in Colombia, and they roast it in house! I've always thought it was interesting how Starbucks and Dunkin' are such popular coffee sellers in North America, Australia couldn't be more different.

[Adardidnothingwrong]

I worked at Starbucks for three years and they wouldn't tell people when they got exposed to COVID at work so they wouldn't have to self-isolate and close the store/find coverage. They threw food away instead of donating it, while still claiming they were. I packed up leftover food and brought it to hospitals to feed health care workers during the pandemic and was told I could get disciplined or even fired for it.

[laethe]

As an ex barista, I gave up Starbucks recently due to their actions towards union busting, and cutting hours so badly that baristas are losing health insurance. Everything in this video makes me even more glad I made that decision.

[asherkarr]

I went on a coffee tour in Colombia and the owner of the farm and coffee shop was saying that they'd get paid something like 500 USD for so much coffee and it'd be exported and resold for something like 2000 USD. The growers are paid horribly for the raw product but the roster are paid really well for roasting that raw product. That now roaster coffee would still about double in profits once sold as a drink

[mariodennisVA]

Starbucks doesn't sell coffee...they sell desserts masquerading as coffee.

[TrueGritSociety]

I worked for Starbucks at the time they started popping up on every corner, they had terrible practices like making employees work through their breaks and lunches while also trying to force people to stay past their shift.

They don’t recycle they don’t do anything good for the world. It’s literally a shit ton of sugar and some coffee put in it.

[Taylor-oqgf]

I currently work at Starbucks, it’s by far not the worst job I’ve ever had, I’m lucky that I have a decent store manager, but there’s a lot with the company that needs to be fixed.

[pizzagroom]

As a 5 year+ xtarbucks "Coffee Master" (basically, they train you to be super 'knowlegable' of their coffee), I've gotten the impression over the last ~3 years (before COVID, and then accelerating during), the company has just stopped caring about us, and are banking on the good will and experiences they built up during the previous 20 years. They recently made us watch an hour long video the can basically be summerized as "we're sorry we didn't do better, you're awesome and deserve better, here's a portable foam blender to show how much we appreciate-- I mean understand you."