The Vancouver Indy Coffee Scene

There will be fewer baristas slinging powdered, non-fat, mocha frappuccinos with processed whipped cream in Richmond, as the Aberdeen Centre’s Starbucks is the first to shut down in Canada.

You might remember Starbucks announcing the elimination of 100 cafes nationally last January. Well happy April Fool’s Day, this Starbucks is out.

Some experts blame the economic downturn others the competition from independent coffee shops. But maybe it’s an overall understanding of high quality coffee.

Perhaps Richmond will be a little less pretentious, but really from what I heard this location was always a little empty and quiet anyway.

Which Starbucks is next on the chopping block?

Starbucks buys Clover

Last night I heard that Clover sold to Starbucks. I was shocked and couldn’t believe it. Well, I am sure that the folks over at Clover made a tied profit off this and yet I wonder if this was the final end-game for the Zander Nosler and Randy Hulett.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, but hey look at the facts!

Clover company colour’s Green
Starbucks company colour’s Green
Clover Company sold in March
Four leaf Clovers are found in Ireland
Ireland’s most greenest day is St. Patty’s in March

OK, more seriously lets look back about two years ago to my first Clover experience.

Why Clover Why?

It was the summer of 2005 and I was working at the Whitefish Group’s Canadian licensed Seattle’s Best Coffee in the Bental V located in downtown Vancouver. It was a high pace and slightly higher quality then Starbucks, but not by much.

While I was working downtown, Caffe Artigiano celebrated its $5 cup of coffee. This coffee made news across Canada and was a great marketing coup for the company. People who had never been in Caffe Artigiano before were coming in for that coffee and also Clover made its first appearance in the local media. Hearing about a $10,000 coffee brewer that brews a $5 cup of precise coffee, I had to try it.

It was still one of the best cups of coffee I have ever had. It danced in my mouth like a prima ballerina in her final performance, which brings me to the sale of Clover to Starbucks.

It really is a simple equation:

Excellent Roast + Excellent Machine + Trained Barista = Great cup of Coffee

You need all three, and the Clover is not an automatic machine. It needs a well trained staff to stir the roast and adjust the time according to each roast. Plus it really isn’t all that fast. So it goes against all of the automation that Starbucks had previously implemented.

Mark Prince over at CoffeeGeek has provided some great insight into this sale on his recent podcast. He goes into much more detail than I have. But let’s just say I am sticking to my pour over, Starbucks can’t buy the license to that!

Pour Over Filter

Caffee Artigiano Granville Location

Walking along Granville there is a lot of sushi joints, clothing stores and stationary shops, but what has excited me most about my frequent Granville strolls is the opening of a new Caffe Artigiano.
I have found the Hornby location all too busy some times and found the surroundings of this new cafe a well kept secret. It was fast, friendly and I dare say the latte was better than the one from the Hornby crowd.
On my second trip to Artigiano, I met Sammy Piccolo who told me that they were looking for a few good barista’s for there new Burnaby store. So if you want to learn from one of the best in the world, here is you opportunity.
He also promised a tour of the 49th Parallel Roastery and I am looking forward to that!

Take two

Almost across the street from Trees Organic Coffee is Take 5 Cafe and they were advertising the $2 latte of any flavour. I have never been a fan of these promotions because I believed it also lowered the quality of the product. But feeling adventuresome, I walked in.
I must admit that is wasn’t the very best latte I have ever had, and I have had far far worse. The point I am trying to make is that if you put effort into a quality product regardless of the quality of your roast, you will notice a vast improvement.
This isn’t a full review of Take Five, but with a good barista and the right knowledge price does not always equal quality.

Starbucks short lived campaign

Best Starbucks in the Neighbourhood?

Starbucks have another piece of spam advertising on the doors of their establishment, proclaiming the best expresso in the neighbourhood. Well on who’s authority? Again this is a smooth marketing campaign for Starbucks, because it is all a matter of opinion. But I think it just looks funny. They are trying really hard to get the perception of quality once had when an automated machine hasn’t improved what a properly trained barista can do. . .

5, 4, 3 . . . and we’re live.

I have started another blog:

blog.robertdall.com

This is more a personal blog that is about my web design and photography skills and anything that isn’t coffee.

In addition to the new blog I have also re-launched a brand new website for web design and photography. This site has been rolling around in the back of my head for years, but it was only until now that I had the technical knowledge to do it. Please check it out.

We now return to your regularly scheduled program.

Starbucks at Pike Place

It is kinda odd to walk all the independent shops of Pike Place Market seeing all the fresh fish, local produce and general buzz of a local market place only to run into one of the largest corporate chains in North America.

Pike Place

The location has three cashiers and two barista’s working a three head machine. No tables or chairs and barely room to move due to the number of people. The drink was a 8oz Dry Cappuccino (no other information was given). It was made  perfectly, sure the expresso was complete crap but the drink was made exactly as a dry cappuccino should be. They also didn’t ask me if dry was like foamy they knew what dry providing these barista were familiar with a wide range of lexicon. For the volume of people on a warm and sunny New Years Eve afternoon it was amazing how well they were working that machine. I had my drink in seven minutes from time of ordering which is decent due to the massive amount of volume served.

While just blocks away. . .

But why can’t this excellent of quality be applied across the board, why just a blocks away from the famed Pike Place Cafe is it the same cookie cutter cafe that makes that same poorly made cappuccino on automatic machines. The automatic machines where brought in to speed up the services and reduce wait times, but at Pike Place I didn’t have an unusually long wait time. The staff handled the rush easily and effectively with teamwork.

Are the employees any less at the other locations, or are they just supplied with more training?

I find an unusual paradox that Starbucks found a good thing at the Pike Place more then 35 years ago and wanted to share this experience with the rest of the world, this I whole hearty agree with. But yet the rest of the worlds Starbucks don’t even remotely resemble the unique nature that is the Pike Place Cafe. Yes their are some really bad independent cafes in Vancouver and yes some chains stores are better then others, but what I really see at every other Starbucks and many other chains is a complete lack of training, knowledge and  a overall lower quality of service and in the immortal words of Howard Schultz:

“we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand.” ~ February 23, 2007 ~

Faces and Places

Where this blog was written: Pike Place Starbucks
Drink ordered: 8 oz Dry Cappuccino
Discount of own to-go cup: 10
Barista Knowledge:  Both cashier and barista were quite knowledgeable
Barista Friendliness: quite nice, with a soft up sell skill set.
Website: www.starbucks.com

My Starbucks Roommate

I’ve lost my roommate to Starbucks

First I have some horrible news, my roommate and his girlfriend, confessed to me that they still go to Starbucks, he goes there quite often and can’t stop going, this after he joined my Friends don’t let friends drink Starbucks group on Facebook.
“I can’t live this lie anymore…I enjoy going to Starbucks…and I like some of their coffee too. It’s not you, Robert…it’s me.”
But I was always suspected him as a Starbucks junkie, He would hide his frappuccino plastic cups in the bottom of the trash or give them to his girlfriend to conceal his real habit.

Can A&E do an “Intervention” on him?
What about SA (Starbucks Anonymous)?

Suggestions, I need suggestions people, I am at a loss, he is the best roommate I have ever had. He doesn’t leave any dishes in the sink nor has his parrol officer phoned, so I guess if that is his only fault I can deal with it. . .

Are you a Caffeine Geek?

If you love science, caffeine and need a new set of coffee cups for your office, kitchen, check out these cups by Think Geek with the caffeine molecule. They also have T-shirts and to go mugs.

Think Geek Caffeine T-Shirt

Think Geek Caffeine Mug

Back, way back in the early years of the 90s I loved Starbucks. I couldn’t get enough of this new drug. I have even been to the first ever Starbucks in Pike Place Market, Seattle. I mean I was a fan. I was used to coffee from McDonalds, BC Ferries and Petro Can. But this was actually good…and those barista’s were so friendly and knowledgeable.

Skip ahead a couple years, when I lived in Yellowknife for three years and rarely saw a Starbucks (or any other chain for that matter). But, Javaroma roasted its own beans and is totally independent. My love of coffee grew. I did a lot of travel up there and had some good and not so good coffee; the best was in Greenland. It was a Danish roast that was cheap as hell and got me through a number of hangovers. To this day I don’t know what was in that roast or why it was so cheap, I don’t speak Danish, but it was so good. The Canadian Customs Agents even joked about having to confiscate my brew during my repatriation in Iqualuit, NU.

Vancouver visit not complete without a visit to Starbucks. . .

I visited Starbucks occasionally every time I was in Vancouver. I still found that friendly service but noticed they were everywhere. I didn’t have to search to find that diamond in the rough. It kind of spoiled the adventure for me a bit when I could find one on every street corner. I wanted more then a 100% Arabica bean and a cute smile from the female barista behind the bar. I wanted culture, stories and the community of people that inhabited the shop. I wasn’t finding that at Starbucks anymore.

A trip down south

The Starbucks Paradox by Bernie Hou

I moved to Winnipeg and found a few independent chains that were as good, if not better than Starbucks. but to skip ahead a couple of years, I had the chance to visit Bogotá, Colombia in 2004. My eyes were open to the world of coffee and how we are exploiting it. I had some great and not so great coffee while I was down there but every shop and cafe I went to seemed to have so much character with a little old lady walking around with cream and sugar or a broom, it was cute. I hate to see what cookie cutter cafes would turn that country into. Also, it was very difficult to get coffee to go in Bogotá, you had to sit and enjoy your beverage. It was kind of nice to sit, relax and enjoy the aroma and chat with your neighbour.

When I moved back to Vancouver in 2005; the Starbucks Paradox (the one thing Starbucks had created they were slowly destroying) had taken over the city, but even more than that. Baristas were now telling me how my drink was made or the way I should like it, and what I should drink. Obviously they were right being the biggest and best coffee chain in the world, they can set the tone that everyone else should follow, right?

Not religious enough

A friend of mine was going to be fired for not taking out her nose stud when company policy changed. She said her mother had given her nose ring to her since puberty and it was a religious symbol in her faith. Starbucks said that was fine but she had to prove it by getting documentation from more than three religious leaders. She was shocked and horrified. . . and left the company not wanting to fight the rule and left after two years of successful employment.

You’ll have to wait a minute because it’s an instamatic

Although the speed and efficiency of the Barista was greatly improved by the automatic machines, the quality of the drinks suffered. It would be great if I could get a latte on any street corner in Vancouver in less than a minute, but why would I want one if no care was put into the making of it, should convenience trump quality?

Disclaimer
(amendment Feb 2009)

I still go to Starbucks about once a month, just to see what is going one. This rant is to show I don’t hate Starbucks because they are the biggest coffee chain on the planet and everyone loves a good David versus Goliath battle. I hate Starbucks because they don’t hold to the virtues that they once held so true.