This weekend 12th-15th March Starbucks UK are inviting people into their stores to try the new Starbucks VIA coffee and see if you can tell the difference between that and regular filter coffee. You might be surprised how good Starbucks VIA is but if not you will still get a voucher for a free Starbucks drink. Check out the full details at www.starbuckscoffee.co.uk
Some of the free Starbuck VIA coffee Starbucks sent me for using my video on their www.starbucksvia.com site. This will all come in handy when traveling etc.
Thank you Starbucks :)
This does seem like a very time consuming way to make good coffee, but if you really are a perfectionist then I guess this is the only way. Personally I don’t think I would ever have the time to do all this.
With the launch of Starbucks VIA on 29th September a new website was launched http://www.starbucksvia.com which includes some user generated content including the video I made in Febuary of my first taste test of VIA.
Best part of Starbucks linking to my video is they have used an image of me on the main page as one of the clickable links. My 15 minutes of fame has started and the clock is still clicking.
After only being available in certain cities the new instant coffee from Starbucks, Starbucks VIA, is being launch nationally in the USA at the end of the month. Building up to that event they have updated or created a YouTube Channel with daily videos of the Starbucks VIA Road Trip.
They are of course also on Twitter (http://twitter.com/starbuckslive) so you can keep up to date with their travels minute by minute.
I still enjoy Starbucks VIA coffee and hope to get some new supplies soon. No news yet as to a nationally UK launch so it’s still a trek into one of the specific London stores if I need any.
From the start coffee houses weren’t just about coffee, they were also a meeting place for men (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Women’s_Petition_against_Coffee) to discuss the important things of the day.
Hundreds of years later that has not changed, we still meet socially in coffee houses, some people work almost exculsively in them (http://jkontherun.com/category/coffee-break/) and with the advent of social media this is becoming more common. Looking at posts on twitter, coffee, meeting in coffee houses, or setting up coffee/meeting houses seems to be big on the agenda. People have called it ‘The Third Place’, not home, not work, but some other place to sit down and relax in. Some other place to connect to.
This brings me back to my last post and how I feel Starbucks does well at reaching out of the internet, using social media to connect to us. ‘Us’ as it’s customers. However I don’t feel like a customer, I feel connected, mostly by the social interacation with store staff (partners as they are called), the Starbucks twitter feed, MyStarbucks Idea’s and the other promotional offers, like the ‘free tall coffee after 2pm’ card I have been using.
Looking at the websites of Cafe Nero (http://www.caffenero.com/), Costa Coffee (http://www.costa.co.uk/) , Coffee Republic (http://www.coffeerepublic.co.uk/) for example, all I see and feel is the flat cold corporate image of those brands. I see no twitter updates, I see no way to easily intereact with them, I see no attempt to connect with their customers. I don’t visit the other chains enough to know if their store staff do connect and intereact with customers and if there is a sense of community. I am sure in places there are.
If you know a place like that, either a chain or indepentant store please let me know if the comments.
(Written in Starbucks inside the Glades in Bromley. Had the best tall Americano I have had for a long while)
After all the media coverage, blog posts and online video taste testing the new Starbucks VIA coffee has been released. Its being released in three cities to start, Seattle, Chicago and also London, which I was very happy to hear about. It is so normal for any new release whether it be coffee, movie or technology to be US only first, it’s nice the release is somewhat international. Following the link on www.starbucksvia.com I could see, on a lovely clear map of which London stores had it. (I did try my local out of London store but they did not have any) Looking around www.starbucks.com I noticed how smooth it looked, how many opportunities, via twitter or www.MyStarbucksIdea.com I had to interact with ‘Starbucks the company’ and how rich in content it was that I realised that www.starbucks.co.uk really sucks as a site.
It is almost like the company has completely forgotten about it and a quick look at the Internet Archive Wayback machine shows it has not changed much since 2003 http://tinyurl.com/starbuckscouk So should Starbucks just get rid of this seemingly independent site? Would it not make more sense to have the main corporate www.starbucks.com site have an international sites option and then those sites use the same navigation, style and formating? HP.com do that, so does Apple.com.
Starbucks.co.uk looks like it was written by a 15 yr old in 1998!
Other UK coffee houses like Costa, Cafe Nero and Coffee Republic have much better looking websites, but they seem very corporate and do not offer the same ‘connection’ or interaction I feel from Starbucks.com
This will lead me to another post later…..
When I go into a coffee shop to buy a coffee it is because I want to drink a cup of coffee and I want to drink it now, not in 20 minutes when it has cooled down.
My coffee of choice is an Americano. I like simple things and an Americano is just that, espresso and hot water. And it’s the hot water that some places seem, to me anyway, to be getting it wrong. The worst offender is Costa Coffee in the UK and this post is inspired by my burnt tongue experience on Saturday. On our way down to the south coast to visit a relative we stopped in to a Costa Coffee to get some drinks for the journey, my family got Cappaccino’s and I got my usual Americano. As I collected it, the paper cup and sleeve gave no protection to my fingers and I had to put it down on the counter and take the lid off to allow the super charged steam to escape. I tried to take a sip before leaving the store but it was still too hot to enjoy, which was annoying as I wanted to enjoy my coffee now as I had bought it now to enjoy. The idea of waiting for my drink to cool, just did not make sense. Should I plan my drink purchases in advance?
‘Humm I am not thirsty now…but I might be in 20 minutes…I better order a drink now so it’s cooled in time.’
Even in just a plain paper cup and not a drinks tumbler my Costa Coffee Americano continued to be warm after 45 minutes of our journey. I think it’s perfect drinking temperature was about 30 minutes after I bought it.
How have people got used to such hot drinks? Why do Costa, in my experience, think we want scolding hot drinks? I personally think adding scolding hot water or over steam milk spoils the coffee and destroys the natural flavours of the drink. But everyone has their own taste.
Out of all the large retail chains in the UK Costa Coffee is the worst for over heated drinks, which is a shame as I think they make a very good espresso which is then ruined. Cafe Nero I slightly better, but I think Starbucks have it right and serve drinks at the correct temperature to enjoy your drink immediately, when you bought it.
As everyone knows Starbucks are releasing an instant coffee. It’s being released at the end of March with trials in certain areas before hand. I was lucky enough to get some from my local Starbucks staff and gave it a taste test in this video.
You can find out more information about Starbucks VIA coffee here.
Yes, they are ready to take my order….most of us love to hear that when we go into our favourite coffee shop. Whether it be a family owned local store or a big international company we all go there for one thing. Good pure coffee.
And that’s exactly what you will find here, good pure coffee information.
People say ‘blog about what you know’ and I think I know coffee :-)
