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- This brand rep tag cloud says most of what you need to know. Note the size of “burnt” and “bitter”–Starbucks just isn’t very good. But more importantly it’s gotten comparatively worse than the other options. It used to be that Starbucks really was better than most coffee, because before Starbucks “gourmet” coffee was practically nonexistent. I remember being excited to try Starbucks on a trip to Seattle back in the mid-90s, because there was no Starbucks in Roanoke, Virginia (later in the decade we got one as part of our first Barnes & Noble).
Of course, there was perfectly good, even superior, coffee to be had, but I didn’t get it at the time. I will fully admit that I needed the hype to convince me. As with so many things, a reasonably good mass-market simulacrum of a cutting-edge product was a gateway into the full range of offerings.
- While we’re on the subject of coffee, I should point out a notable absence in the Reader‘s Best Of Chicago issue, our Ukrainian Village/East Village issue, and damn near every coffee shop roundup in any local publication: the Mercury Cafe at 1505 W. Chicago. It’s basically a great college coffee shop–good music, comfy thrift-store furniture, lots of magazines and books–only with good coffee.
