[QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase]
…But today I happened to be in a mall near closing and my wife wanted a decaf coffee to go.
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(bolding mine)
I’d be willing to bet that this is the actual reason. They’re not going to make up a batch of something that’s already known to be a fairly slow seller late in the day with the expectation that they will wind up dumping it.
Because they track when people buy what. I know someone who works for a Starbucks where they’ve stopped making decaf entirely, because almost no one bought it. They were dumping *gallons *of the stuff down the drain every day.
Because if there were one, they’d be serving it. Instead, there just aren’t enough people to make it worth their while.
The point of being a barista is not that you serve coffee–it’s that you make expresso drinks. And if you think brewing espresso and steaming milk the correct way is easy, that’s because you’ve never tried it.
In which case, it will brand you as either wrong or dead, because “decaffeinated” doesn’t mean “contains *no *caffeine,” simply “*less *caffeine.”
Starbucks doesn’t drive other stores out of business by undercutting prices, but by oversaturation. “A Starbucks on every corner” is fairly literal in some parts of some cities–I have literally seen with my own eyes two Starbucks a block apart (Toronto, 2001). Each individual store makes less money, but the company as a whole makes more. They can soak the individual store losses, but someone who owns only one or two shops can’t.
Here’s an example using made up and ridiculous numbers:
Independent Coffeeshop pulls in $1,000 a day. Starbucks opens three stores in their area: A, B, and C. Some people start buying more coffee, and some people go to the Starbucks instead of Independent Coffeeshop. Now the total take is up to $2,000 per day for the area, but it’s split among the four stores. IC, Starbucks A, SB, and SC are *each *taking in $500 a day. So Starbucks as a whole is making $1,500 a day, but IC is only making half of what it used to.
One of my other complaints against Starbucks was their habit of loudly proclaiming that they used Fair Trade coffee–while using it for only a very small percentage of what they brewed and sold.
I’ve tried it on my home machine. I concur. It ain’t easy.
America’s Test Kitchen rated Dunkin’ Donuts (unless you have a brand “Duncan” Donuts that I’ve never seen) as “Not Recommended” (their lowest rating) and with the highest quaker (an underdeveloped coffee bean that fails to get sorted out before the roasting stage) count. I concur - about 10-15 years ago, DD quality was much better.
They also recommend that those who add milk use a darker roast (Millstone Colombian Supremo was their highest rated), and those that drink black use a lighter roast (Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Our Blend or Eight O’Clock Coffee Original).
Regarding Starbucks House Blend:
They are serving that market - by brewing to order. It’s not like they won’t make you any - they just make it when it is asked for, as opposed to making it ahead on the off chance someone will want it.
Now, aren’t you glad you touched off this linguistic class warfare nonsense in GQ?
We could almost do a little skit – “Scenes from the Class War at the Local Coffee Place” – and it might have been amusing about 20 years ago.
How time flies when you’re attempting to problematize otherwise uncontroversial matters of usage. 
Well, if that were the case, fine - but, I have quit going to Starbucks in the PM for decaf because I was repeatedly told, “Oh, we don’t serve decaf after noon.” There was no offer of brewing to order.
This was a teenage girl handing out leftover brownies at closing time. She probably had less formal training than a good supermarket cashier. As many people have noted, here and elsewhere, what she does is not comparable to a true barista. You need to give up on the naming when you’re an employee of a glorified kiosk at the intersection of two corridors in a mall. You at least need to have walls before you get called a specialized title.
A Starbucks a block away from a Starbucks? Piffle. Lewis Black first hit it big with his routine “The End of the Universe,” about a corner in Texas with Starbucks directly across from another Starbucks. (Apparently there is a third there now, inside a bookstore.) A guy has a whole webpage devoted to multiple Starbucks locations. I can’t find a legitimate video of the routine, but search it out. It’s a brilliant rant.
I’m surprised decaf sells so poorly. With our aging population, there must be a rising percentage of the population who is not supposed to drink leaded any more. Although they may all have the sense not to go to Starbucks and stick to diners, where the decaf always flows. And the name for the woman behind the counter is “honey.” 
It’s the same “intelligent” hate that’s aimed at Microsoft by those who claim to be against the “big bad corporation”. while listening to their ipod; You know the music player made by that “little” company called Apple.
Hijack: Hopefully you’ve found the various ratings out there of relative caffeine content remaining in different coffee brands and varieties. Some are extremely low-caf, while others are barely reduced.
Which is why I generally have to tell the restaurant why I can’t have caffeine. Just so they realize it’s not a preference, and decide to be lazy. (As for buying at home, yes, I check labels.)
The funny thing is when I first developed epilepsy, I WAS able to have caffeine, but after awhile, I couldn’t. Weird.
Agreed. I have no hate for Starbucks, but I don’t really like their coffee.
Great business success - more power to them. I have no problem going there and a getting breakfast sandwich or muffin - I even like their lattes or frappucinnos and stuff on occasion. Plus, the service is usually good and the atmosphere is decent.
But their drip coffee - not very good in my book, and I both love and require coffee. 6-10 cups per day.
I just want to make sure you know that “decaf” still has some caffeine in it. The decaf process still leaves a small percentage of caffeine per cup. In case you wonder why that second cup brought on a seizure!
What if you just get some tea, or a steamer, or hot chocolate? Just to make yourself more comfortable in an uncomfortable place. That’s what I do, anyway. Just opt for the non-coffee stuff, there’s more of a selection than you think!
I used to hate their drip–always tasted burnt–so I would tend to get americanos when I went there. However, since they’ve switched to their Pike Roast or Pike Place or whatever the hell they call their new house blend, I haven’t noticed the over-roasting problem with their coffee.
In post #17 of this thread, I asked why they can’t just brew coffee a cup at a time. The closest thing to an answer I got was this:
I find it very hard to believe that a coffee machine can’t be designed to produce a one-cup batch. Did somebody really determine that coffee only tastes right if it’s produced 8 cups (or however many are in a Starbucks pot) at a time? Are all these people who make a cup or two in their drip coffeemaker at home producing crap and deluding themselves into thinking it tastes good?
I know that sounds snarky, but I really don’t get it. Starbucks is a multi-billion dollar company. You’d think they could make a machine to produce coffee one cup at a time.
They do, just not every retail outlet has them. It’s called the Clover, and it costs over 10k. But yeah, the long and short of it is a regular ol’ 8 cup coffee maker will not make 1 cup of coffee palatable.
ETA: Find a Clover near you!
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:55, topic:558159”]
In post #17 of this thread, I asked why they can’t just brew coffee a cup at a time. The closest thing to an answer I got was this:
I find it very hard to believe that a coffee machine can’t be designed to produce a one-cup batch. Did somebody really determine that coffee only tastes right if it’s produced 8 cups (or however many are in a Starbucks pot) at a time? Are all these people who make a cup or two in their drip coffeemaker at home producing crap and deluding themselves into thinking it tastes good?
I know that sounds snarky, but I really don’t get it. Starbucks is a multi-billion dollar company. You’d think they could make a machine to produce coffee one cup at a time.
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I don’t know about Starbucks, but with a lot of coffee places if you walk in at 3 in the afternoon and ask for a cup of decaf coffee, they’ll just make you a decaf americano (an espresso shot and hot water, which results in a drink of similar strength to drip coffee). It uses a little bit more coffee and time per drink, but less so than brewing and then throwing out an entire pot of decaf drip (minus one cup).
Also, to expound a little more, the key thing with Starbucks (like any chain) is maintaining uniformity of experience. They want to be sure that if you walk in and ask for a certain drink, it’s going to taste the same any time and any where you get it. It’s perfectly possible to brew a decent 2-4 cup batch of coffee on your home autodrip machine, but it’s not going to taste the same as when you do an 8 cup batch. That’s the same reason why they probably won’t do the americano thing I mentioned earlier.
I’ve tried a variety of their other drinks, both hot and cold. None of their drinks rates above a “meh” in my opinion. And for their prices, they had better serve me something that is above a meh.
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:55, topic:558159”]
In post #17 of this thread, I asked why they can’t just brew coffee a cup at a time. The closest thing to an answer I got was this:
I find it very hard to believe that a coffee machine can’t be designed to produce a one-cup batch. Did somebody really determine that coffee only tastes right if it’s produced 8 cups.
[/QUOTE]
What I wrote about for the most part was an espresso machine and the process therein. Espresso is exactly a one cup at a time process. (Well most machines can do doubles, but that is the extent.) The whole point of espresso is to make a perfectly fresh coffee for the customer on the spot, without keeping stale dreck hanging about. The big win with espresso is also that when you do pour a coffee it is fast. All the other processes have a longer lead time - even if they create more coffee at the end. Press pot, filter, etc, are relatively slow, but you get a lot when done. So they suit the batch operation more.
The idea of a long coffee - which is what seems to be often the preferred version in the US, is commonly approximated by the Americano (no guesses as to why it is called this) which as has been described earlier, is simply an espresso diluted with hot water. It should be made on the spot.
Really, the fundamental problem seems to be that Starbucks are slipping even further. They are not premium by any measure, and are now sliding back to less than mediocre. This is simply poor service.