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?