Have you ever wondered why Starbucks coffee tastes bitter and burnt? A lot of people have. And it’s not just ordinary “Joes” (pardon the pun) like us who think Starbucks coffee tastes bitter and burnt, either.
In March, 2007, Consumer Reports reported a tasting that compared Starbucks “basic black — no flavors, milk, or sugar” coffee with that of three competitors: McDonald’s Premium, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Burger King. A professional tester led the tastings. Other tasters were from Consumer Reports’ food-tasting division. They tasted medium cups of coffee from two locations of each company.
The tasters found the Starbucks coffee to be “strong, but burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water instead of open.” In fact, Starbucks came in second to McDonald’s Premium coffee.
Of the four chains’ coffees, Starbucks’ was the only one the tasters considered bitter and burnt.
In Starbucks defense, The Seattle Times reported, “Starbucks Spokeswoman Sanja Gould pointed out that taste is subjective. Then she used the bandwagon propaganda technique that “The 44 million customer visits to our stores per week globally indicate that many people enjoy our premium coffee.”
And The Consumerist reported an interview between Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo. In the interview, Schultz maintains that premium coffee isn’t “being sold at those fast-food places” and that Starbucks “customers are not buying a hamburger and fries and then going to get espresso.” Starbucks isn’t fast food? Yeah. Right.
In March, 2009, Consumer Reports reported a tasting using 100% Columbian regular coffee. Eight O’Clock coffee came out on top. Starbucks didn’t even place among the top contenders. Unfortunately, the report doesn’t mention how the Starbucks coffee tasted.
So why do so many people and professional tasters think Starbucks coffee tastes bitter and burnt? Some people maintain the reason is because Starbucks uses the cheapest beans they can buy. Others say Starbucks overroasts its beans to hide the poorer quality of the cheap beans. And WikiAnswers.com says that Starbucks “flash roasts” the beans, which dries them out and gives the coffee the burnt flavor.
I have a better answer, though — from someone in the coffee business.
A few years ago, around 2006, when Lisa and I had our rubber art stamp business, we were driving to South Carolina to attend a trade show. While passing through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, we noticed a sign for Daily Grind Unwind — which then was a local coffee chain that began in Winchester, Virginia — and decided to stop for coffee.
Up till then, I’d been drinking Starbucks coffee because I liked strong coffee. But as soon as I tasted their dark roast, I fell in love with it. I found the coffee not only strong, but smooth — much, much better than the Starbucks I’d been drinking.
When I mentioned how much better the Daily Grind coffee was than Starbucks, the franchise owner told me that his coffee tasted smooth — not bitter or burnt like Starbucks’ coffee — because Daily Grind roasts their coffee beans at the normal roasting temperature, which results in evenly roasted beans that give a smooth flavor. He went on to explain that Starbucks roasts their beans at a higher temperature than normal so the beans will get roasted more quickly. In the process, thought, some of the beans are burnt — which gives Starbucks’ coffee its bitter and burnt taste.
He also mentioned that one reason why Starbucks pushes flavored coffees so hard is because the flavored drinks disguised the burnt taste.
He said, too, that Starbucks was going to come out with a premium coffee that cost more than its regular coffees. Starbucks was making its “new” premium coffee by roasting the beans in the normal way. I don’t know if that’s happened yet — or if what he said was just a rumor.
But what he told me about Starbucks’ roasting beans at a high temperature makes sense. A coffee chain that has 16,120 stores worldwide — including 11,000 in the us and almost 1,000 in Canada needs to roast a lot of beans! And one way of doing that would be to increase production by increasing roasting temperature even if the process makes the coffee taste bitter and burnt. After all, taste is something people acquire over time — and a smart marketing campaign can “educate” consumers to think that bitter and burned coffee actually tastes good.
So what has all this to do with eating and drinking at fast-food chains? Perhaps the larger the chain becomes, the lower the quality of food it serves or the more corners it cuts — such as buying the lowest grade bean (or beef) or roasting coffee beans at too-high temperatures — to keep costs down.
What do you think?
Tags: chains, coffee, fast food, fast-food chains, McDonald's, Starbucks
It all makes sense! I don’t like coffee, though, so I’m no judge!
I think I’m glad I don’t drink coffee!!! I had np idea that the beans tasted different when they were roasted longer. I do know that McD’s coffee is very popular. We go through about 50 pots just in the morning!
Thjey arer starting the premium coffees now.
Dan didn’t mention the new coffee we are drinking at home from Blue Smoke Coffee! I’m going to blog about it since were on the topic of coffee.
Hey Dan,
I think your friends at the Daily Grind Coffee house are absolutely correct and I think your right about drawing a connection between quality and the size of the business.
I slow roast my beans, by hand, a pound at a time. I know that if Blue Smoke were to grow into a large business, I wouldn’t be able to do the roasting this way anymore. So it is why I intend for Blue Smoke to remain the small craft roastery it is today, serving a small region to insure it’s super fresh and the best quality possible.
One thing I’ve realized through all of this mess the economy has been going through, is that bigger certainly is NOT better. It’s the BIG companies that have been in the most trouble through all of this (and have largely caused this problem). The biggest banks were the greediest and therefore more eagerly jumped into the financial schemes. The small banks are more stable now than the large banks, because they were more cautious in regards to these schemes (and perhaps less greedy). I do think the larger a business becomes, the more greedy it becomes — it’s like a cancer.
So I recently switched my bank account over from Bank of America to a locally owned bank, because I wanted to support these smaller guys and their efforts to be responsible and to keep my money in our community.
The local banks are investing their money (our deposits) locally, making our region stronger. Just like shopping at locally owned stores and buying locally made products keeps the money here and therefore strengthens our community versus shopping at Wal-Mart where your money gets immediately sucked out of our community and in most cases, clear across the world to China where most of the products available at Wal-Mart are made.
Keep up the good work to bringing attention to all this Dan and Lisa — I can’t wait for the book to be published
Thanks as lot for your comment and support, Kevin.
I think that once you taste good coffee, you can tell the difference. I always liked Starbucks coffee because it was strong. But as soon as I tasted the Daily Grind coffee, I could tell the difference. The Daily Grind guy’s explanation helped me understand what the difference was.
(It seems that now the Daily Grind is a much larger chain and extends into a lot of states. It would be interesting to see if the quality of their coffee is still the same or if they’ve had to start making compromises in quality.)
I love your Blue Smoke coffee! Until Seasons Harvest Market began began carrying it, I had to drive all the way to Chattanooga to buy it at Greenlife Grocery. I like my coffee strong, and mix regular with decaf so I can have strong coffee without a lot of caffeine. When I couldn’t find the your Blue Smoke decaffeinated earlier this week at Seasons Harvest, I drove to Greenlife to get a some. (Greenlife is a great grocery store, by the way — as you well know.)
i just bought a cup of Starbucks and it was so terrible that I googled burnt coffee and found this article. I think McDonnalds is much better than Starbucks.
I love Starbucks coffee (especially the bolder blends) so I guess I’m a fan of bitter and burnt tasting coffee. I’m also a fan of very hoppy and bitter beers like IPAs. So I suppose that I’m just another typical idiotic coffee/beer snob with dead taste buds. At least I’m man enough to admit it and accept who I am.
I don’t like chains although sometime I have to admit they make something guiltily delicious (like McD’s fries). But I have always gotten stomach cramps after drinking Starbucks coffee and I love dark roasts normally. If I get stuck having to buy something at a Starbucks (usually cause I’m on the road and need a bathroom!) I will get an Americano or latte, perhaps they use better beans for their espresso, or at least you can be sure it was just made.
Mr. Snob,
I understand where you are coming from. I like varying kinds of coffee and beer, but I tend to be drawn to the bitter ones as the ones I enjoy drinking most of the time. I really think God created us with individual tastes, so to each his own. What more can be said?
I have always figured this was why starbucks’ coffee tasted burnt. Ever since I had a cup of some organic free trade coffee, I’ve been hocked ever since and cringe anytime I have to endure a cup of starbucks.
At home we use Larry’s Beans. We get the beans by the pound from a local coffee shop that carries them. Great coffee.
i just bought some cofffee from starbucks and it was gross it tasted brunt it was supose to tast like dark choc and spice but it didnt boy what a rip off
Actually, to my knowledge Starbucks only purchases Arabica beans which are certainly not low grade beans.
I also think it would be important to contrast apples with apples, as in when you are comparing your other brands to Starbucks make sure the bean, ground, and proportions are similar before you become critical of one and the like. All of these factors make a dramatic difference on the final product; I can taste a major variation in flavor when the exact same bean has been ground for a cone-shaped filter, opposed to a flat-bottom filter, and both of such are used for brewed coffee quite commonly.
Starbucks carries many varieties of beans, which are roasted differently according to what kind of characteristic and flavor profile they are seeking, for instance the Espresso blend is going to be bold, thick, smooth, and caramel-like, opposed to the quite distasteful Pike-Place roast which they brew 24/7, which is bitter, thin, and bity.
I would argue their Espresso is quite smooth though, of course you’ve got to take into account kids who do not care how your drinks are made 10-1 are going to be working there. But all else equal: the shots are timed, the machine has been cleaned, the shot-glasses are rinsed, I believe you would agree with me.
Anyhow, in summation: Consider grind, roast, water, proportions, and the brewing method when comparing.
Cooks Illustrated magazine did a taste test of coffee in an issue a couple of years back. I was trying to find a link to the article to no avail. I think they reviewed Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s and probably a few others. They found that during a blind taste test with plain black coffee most testers found the Starbucks to be burnt tasting and the least enjoyable. They then did a taste test where they included cream and sugar in the coffee and many testers found the Starbucks to be one of the better tasting of the group. I think the conclusion was that most people buying Starbucks are going to put cream and sugar in their coffee and it was roasted to reflect that particular taste. This made sense at the time but I think the roasting at a higher temp. to get more beans done in a day is a far more likely scenario. I myself add cream and Splenda to my coffee but I can still taste the difference from really high quality coffee (Stumptown in Portland or Intelligentsia in Chicago) and something like Starbucks or Folger’s.
Starbuck’s is not so much about the coffee as the swanky atmosphere and the social stigma associated with having a “Starbucks Coffee” paper cup with sleeve in your hand. Everyone I know who frequents a Starbucks, literally everyone, purchases a flavored drink that is so full of sugar and milk they can barely even taste the coffee.
It’s just cool to say “Yeah, I’m working on my laptop from Starbucks today”. I’ve never met anyone who would like to boast about the fact that they are online from Panera Bread, Dunkin Donuts, or the like…even though the coffee at both places is much, much better than Starbucks.
I think there is another reason STarbucks roasts the coffee the way they do. beans have a great variety in flavor, which is exactly what you do not want in a chain. AT a chain people expect the exact same thing regardless of which store they go in. I think by overroasting the beans Stabucks is able to get a consistent flavor profile across all the stores.
your post about roasting at high temperartures make sense. When you roast vegetables at a high temperature they brown more quickly. So I’m assuming the same can be said of coffee beans.