This is why the “Joe Muggs” at the local Books-A-Million gets the business of the boyfriend and myself instead of Starbucks. (And the fact that the selection of my beverage of choice, hot tea, is much better there than Starbucks.)
~TygerD
FWIW Cooks magizine did a taste test of coffee recently.
Drinking the coffee black Starbucks came in 6th IIRC.
Adding milk, Starbucks was first.
I agree that Starbucks is in the milk selling business.
Since I drink my coffee black, I don’t go to Starbucks much.
No amount of training would make that possible at Starbucks, though – with their roast, most of the cafeol is burned off the bean before the poor barista has a hand in it. Not even a perfect ristretto can extract what isn’t there.
And in other news concerning the megalith coffee concern, they just won a lawsuit in China over trademark infringement.
Humph. That’s the story. Here’s the winning the verdict story..
How do you make the little euro symbol?
I’ll give it a try. I’m dubious, though - it doesn’t mention on the site if they’re arabica beans. Are they?
According to my foody friend (who may be entirely wrong,) Cafe Mam gets roasted in Eugene, Oregon, when the orders come in. If he’s right about this, it means I get it within 48 hours of roasting. I don’t know if it’s true, but I can tell you those beans have more oil on them than any I’ve ever seen. I freeze it immediately and take it out a bit at a time - I’ve literally had people show up at my house just hoping I was making a pot they could hit off. The stuff is like crack.
I notice that Cafe San Miguel is in the same co-op as Cafe Mam. They’re probably quite similar. Have you tried Cafe Mam?
For the rest of you rolling your eyes at this - Cafe Mame is about $30 for a 5 pound bag. That comes to around $6 per pund. Compare that to Tully’s or Charbucks, at $8 or $9 per pound, and they aren’t even in the same class as this stuff. You owe it to yourself to give it a try.
Aaaaack! :eek:
This, I agree with. I tend not to like French roast at all; I don’t think replacing coffee’s natural volatile oils with charcoal improves the beverage in the slightest. But you simply can’t get a cup of brewed coffee at Starbucks that doesn’t taste noticeably over-roasted. I’m sure for people who only enjoy dark roasts, Starbucks must be nice, but for the rest of us with slightly more discerning palates, uck. Cheap grocery store coffee ain’t great, but it doesn’t have the objectionable taste of blackened beans that were roasted far too hot.
No way, man. I’m not leaving five pounds of coffee sitting out, it takes me three months to drink all of it. I don’t care what anyone says, whole beans are preserved better that way in my experience.
Yeah, people freak out about my Cuban cigars in the refrigerator, too. 
When you smoke 'em at a rate of one every two years, they just don’t last in a makeshift humidor unless it’s cold.
Yup! My friend Roxanne gets it in mail-order, and she makes a good cuppa.
Cafe San Miguel is definitely a nice arabica. I guess the main difference is where it’s grown. From what I’ve seen, the San Miguel is oilier than the Cafe Mam – but I don’t know how much that has to do with how far it’s been shipped after roasting, or even what quantity my friend buys in or how long she keeps it around. It seems possible that surface oils might be reabsorbed after a while.
I didn’t realize that the Mam was so much cheaper, though. It looks like it may be more economical to go that route, even with shipping. (Used to paying $12CDN per pound.)
You can knock the taste of Starbuck’s all you want, because obviously that’s subjective, but I hate these threads where everyone insists that a “cup of coffee at Starbuck’s is four bucks.”
No, it isn’t. A plain old cup of coffee at Starbucks is just over a dollar. Sure, you get it cheaper at the gas station or 7-11, but where I live, I can get a plain old cuppa Joe for about $1.20 at Starbucks. It’s the fancy coffee-and-milk concoctions with syrup and whipped cream that are three or four bucks. And I’m pretty sure the muffins aren’t four dollars, either.
And you can ask for a small, medium or large without any snide looks from the barista, too. You don’t have to ask for a grande or venti anymore. When they first exploded all over the lanscape, they tried to impose their snooty Italian sizing names on us, but not anymore.
Pfft. Ever tried to milk a soy bean? Getting your fingers around their tiny nipples isn’t easy, you know.
Right. But you have to keep in mind that Starbucks played a pretty central role in making cafés ubiquitous in the United States; before that, the notion of a four dollar coffee beverage was pretty outré. Starbucks does indeed offer brewed coffee for far cheaper (as do all cafés) but if it weren’t for them, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to most people in the United States at least to buy coffee and milk for $3.75.
Has anyone ever had a problem just ordering a small, medium, or large at any café? Because Starbucks is not the only place with weird sizing names, and I’ve never bothered to do learn them at any café. I don’t get why people seem to be so offended by the funny size names, when no employee has ever so much as blinked at me for ordering a “small” or a “large”.
OOOoo! I was just musing about how my travel mug only holds one big cup of coffee. (Single cup on the office Flavia machine, plus Coffeemate Hazelnut creamer to cool it down). I must upgrade to the kind of container you describe here.
I do like the cold mocha drinks at Starbucks, but then I love most things artificial-tasting.
Meet The Bubba Keg, othewise known as The Brew Keg, and an orange or green abomination sold by Home Depot. Made by the same company, quite a few outlets are using them for advertising.
This thing keeps ice icy for hours, and hot hot for hours. Mmmmm. And, and, it’s the source of relentless ridicule ! 
Just don’t order it from Starbucks. On Christmas eve, my sister-in-law offered to go out and pick up coffee from Starbucks, so I ordered a decaf. She returns with a venti that I proceed to drink leisurely. As I am draining the cup, I start to get this incredible rush, the likes of which I haven’t felt in over eight years, since I dropped caffeine. I might as well have snorted a gram of Peruvian Pink, as it felt as though my heart was going to leap out of my chest. I checked the cup, which was clearly marked “decaf”, yet my symptoms put the lie to that. For the next two hours, I was grinding my teeth. Bastards can’t even get a simple decaf right.
Hey, just yesterday, I got some FREE ground coffee from my local Starbucks! How could anyone complain about that?
…well, the problem was that the ground coffee was in the bottom of the bag that they put my scone in. Nothing like a pastry half-covered in coffee grounds for breakfast!
I have been reprimanded for ordering a “large black ice tea unsweet” at 4 different major metropolitan area stores.
My Brownie parents keep giving me Starbucks cards as leader appreciation gifts and it takes me all year to use them up because I can’t be bothered to be corrected.
They do have the nicest quality straws in FF land, though.
I loved Starbucks in the '70s when they had one store on Capital Hill in Seattle. They sold bulk tea, spices and coffee. They didn’t charge much for a cuppa. (either coffee or tea) The people that ran it were knowledgable. I learned how to store coffee beans from them and bought my first grinder there.
sigh.
I’m so old.
Is that one still there? Even if it has been transformed into a modern day Starbucks… that might be cool to see.
[sub]You remember you made a Ballard joke many threads ago, about shutting your coat into your car door so you could fit in? My husband recently explained that one to me, since I’m not a local. So, a belated HAHAHA! That’s cute! 
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