Jesse, who has worked at Starbucks for almost a year, has written a mythbusting “Buyer’s Guide” that will help you in your quest to save money when ordering your favorite Starbucks beverage. Our favorite tips? Frappucinos are a rip off, there’s no free ride at the drive-thru, and ordering a latte with chai syrup is cheaper than a chai with espresso.
Consumerist drinks its coffee black, but Jesse obviously loves the complicated world of Starbucks, and if you do too, this is the post for you.
Jesse’s Starbucks Buyer’s Guide
I’ve been working for Starbucks for almost a year, and my love for coffee and free coffee beverages are what keep me there. As much as some people may complain, Starbucks does offer a high quality coffee, even if it comes at a premium price. Here’s my take on some tips for ordering at Starbucks in order to keep prices low and tastebuds happy. I’ll also try to bust down some myths and educate about basic coffee principles.
Myth #1Starbucks coffee tastes burnt.
While it’s true that Starbucks does tend to roast their beans a bit darker than most other coffee places, what you’re tasting isn’t actually “burnt.” The Specialty Coffee Association of America says that standard brewing should have two full tablespoons of coffee for every six ounces of water. Most other coffee shops and restaurants will barely even use half that much coffee. The coffee then ends up tasting much stronger than what most casual coffee drinkers are used to. Choosing the mild coffee of the day isn’t really going to help if you think Starbucks coffee is stronger. The mild coffees tend to have what’s known as a stronger acidity. Acidity refers to the sharp taste on the tongue and how long the flavor of the coffee lasts – not the actual PH balance. If you don’t like the taste of burnt coffee, you’ll probably shy away from Latin American and African coffees which have a higher acidity.What you probably should order is an Americano. An Americano is espresso and hot water to dilute it to the flavor strength of brewed coffee. It’s milder in body and won’t seem as “burnt.”
As far as price goes, standard coffee is the cheapest that you’re going to get at Starbucks. It does seem to be a bit more expensive that other coffee shops, but remember – they’re using more actual coffee. An Americano runs more expensive because making the drink takes more man hours. We’ll break down the cost of espresso later.
Myth #2
Instead of paying higher amounts for iced coffee, I can just buy regular coffee, ask for a cup of ice, and pour the coffee over that.
Iced coffee is brewed double strength before it’s poured over ice in order to give it the regular strength of coffee. If you just buy a regular cup of coffee and pour it over ice, you’re getting extremely week coffee that’s half as strong as it should be.
Myth #3
Going for the Venti espresso drink is a better value.
A Venti drink is twenty ounces. It has two shots of espresso in it. The Specialty Coffee Association of America says that there should be one ounce of espresso for every eight ounces of beverage. This means that there are eighteen ounces of milk for two ounces of espresso – that’s a lot of milk! The only drink sizes that meet the SCAA regulations are the eight once Short that has one shot and the sixteen ounce Grande that has two shots. The tall is twelve ounces and also only has one shot. Because Starbucks follows SCAA guidelines strictly, they won’t put two shots into a tall or three shots into a Venti because that technically would be too much espresso.
What people don’t realize is that Starbucks even offers the Short. Back in the day, there were only two sizes – short and tall. As our American appetites grew, so did the size of our drinks. But the short is actually a lot closer to the size of what a traditional latte would be. It’s also a couple dollars cheaper than going for the Venti.
Now my personal preference is one ounce of espresso to every four ounces of beverage – but I like my drinks strong and I get them for free.
The Truth About Espresso and the Great Frappucino Swindle:
A few years ago, Starbucks made the jump to automatic espresso machines. Standard procedure for pulling a shot of espresso requires grinding into the portafilter, tamping it down, locking it into the espresso machine, and pressing the button to start the water. The Starbucks machine does all of this with the touch of one button – it also stores the coffee grounds as compressed pucks in a drawer that needs to be emptied only twice a day. This saves a lot of time for baristas, especially when there’s a long line. The shots themselves are very good for an automatic machine. But these machines cost about ten thousand dollars apiece compared to about three thousand for a quality manual commercial grade espresso machine. That’s a lot of money to recoup at about two dollars for a double shot. Not to mention that Starbucks also pays its employees a higher wage than most coffee shops because they don’t make as much tips working at Starbucks. The cost of operating a Starbucks is astronomical. But the quality is there.
Even with the cost of these machines, Starbucks doesn’t charge much more than your local coffeeshop. In fact, sometimes it’s cheaper. And the way they recoup these costs? Frappucinos. A Frappucino is a blended coffee beverage that most people find quite tasty. But what the hell is actually inside it? Standard Frappucino recipe relies on using a Frappucino Base and ice, along with a pump of the flavor syrup of your choice. And the Frappucino Base? First you add instant coffee to water. Then you pour in a box of Frappucino Mix, which lists its first ingredients as “Milk Ingerdients.” The amount of high fructose corn syrup and strange processed food materials in these things is scary. And the best part? They will run you about four bucks a piece. It doesn’t cost barely anything to make one, but you better believe that they’re going to overcharge you for it. And because the Frappucino base is already extremely sweetened, the recipe only calls for one pump of syrup even though you’ll be charged the full thirty cents. A Tall drink usually gets three, a Grande four, and a Venti gets five pumps.
If you like cold drinks, try an iced latte or a mocha. It won’t taste as sweet, but here’s the best part – if you pay for syrup, you can ask for as much as you want as long as it’s only one type! Standard Starbucks practice is to charge for each type of syrup used not how much of each. You can avoid this by asking for half and half – if you like the taste of Vanilla and Hazelnut, ask for half Vanilla and half Hazelnut – this will help from being overcharged.
Other tips for money saving:
Soy milk costs more. Organic milk costs more. They’re tastier, but also cost more.
If you like the taste of espresso with a chai latte, ask them to ring it up as a latte with chai syrup added instead of a chai latte with espresso added. Espresso costs about fifty cents to add a shot while syrup is only thirty cents. If you get a Grande latte, you already get two shots and only add thirty cents for the chai syrup. If you get a Grande chai latte and add two shots, you’re adding about a dollar to the drink.
Try to do the math – sometimes it’s cheaper to ask to be rung up as a larger size instead of a small size with an added shot. It never hurts to ask – Starbucks employees are people too and probably don’t want to overcharge you.
Don’t use the drive-thru. If you use the drive thru, every single modifier gets added on the computer, otherwise your drink won’t be made right. Usually asking for soy milk as a creamer is free, and you can ask them to put whipped cream on anything for free as well, but if you go through the drive-thru you bet your sweet bippy you’ll get charged for it.
And finally – try it without a flavoring! Milk is inherently sweet because of lactose and only gets sweeter once steamed. You don’t always need a vanilla latte and after ten drinks it’s like you’re getting a free Tall latte! Once you get used to the flavor of espresso and milk, then you’re one step closer to order regular brewed coffee which is as cheap as you go.
However, if you’re a tea drinker you’re in luck. Hot and iced tea are just about the same price as coffee.
-Jesse
(Photo: Beautiful Machine)
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I have a sneaky feeling that “Jesse” might work for the Starbucks P.R. department, if not, (s)he soon will.
Starbucks sells iced tea? Do they sell it without sugar?
Absolutely! I’m drinking iced Tazo green tea this moment… nothing added but the ice.
I take issue with “Myth” #1. Their coffee does not taste too strong – it tastes burnt, though burnt is not quite the correct term for it. When I brew my own coffee I use AT LEAST 2 tablespoons of coffee for every six ounces of water and I don’t get a burnt taste.
Also, taste is highly dependent upon the person and to tell someone that they don’t taste something is somewhat silly. If I bite into a piece of toast and it tastes burnt and you tell me that it isn’t burnt, well, that doesn’t change what I am tasting now, does it?
Thanks for the other great tips though. All-in-all this is a very informative article!
I worked for Starbucks longer then “jesse” (those days are long gone, thank god), and those are not really confessions; in fact, they barely skim (ha ha) the surface of what a longtime barista could tell you, both good and shudderingly awful, about the company. Sounds like “Jesse,” if she’s actually a barista and not, as Wormfather claims, a Starbucks PR person, is one of those rare partners that has some weird allegiance to the ‘bucks. Don’t worry, in another couple months, she’ll grow out of it.
Standard Starbucks coffee is burnt and bitter. I don’t care what kind of justification you use for it, but that is not a “myth”. Real coffee shouldn’t taste like that.
“they won’t put two shots into a tall or three shots into a Venti because that technically would be too much espresso.”
I drink two “triple venti” lattes everyday. I have never had a Starbucks refuse to put 3 shots in my venti latte.
Also, Starbucks coffee DOES NOT taste “burnt”. It tastes like coffee. Americans are used to drinking 32 oz buckets of diluted dishwater from Dunkin Donuts and have no idea what real coffee tastes like.
I was thinking the same thing! Starbucks is sneaky as hell, “pretending” to be giving confessions and consumer tips. Psh! Give me some REAL confessions, from a REAL barrista! *smirks*
@B: Yes, the default is plain brewed tea, you add your own modifiers. Try their tazo iced passion or iced green tea.
bdgbill lmao! “diluted dishwater from dunkin donuts”
@bambino: Finally, a reason to go to Starbucks.
@B: You might find the passion a little too sweet by nature. The iced green is always a great choice though.
Yeah, I’d had the same feeling like he works for the PR dept. Also, chai this, latte, this, venti this…..just gimme a big cup of coffee…no need for the snooty confusing crap….10 bucks says they start putting those words on the SATs
@mantene : I agree with your opinion of myth #1 also in my expeirence an Americano should taste a little stronger than a cup of coffee which at Starbucks it does but without the brunt taste. (at least the double small I order) Generally I find its best just to order that anyway since it just tastes like freshly brewed coffee instead of X hours old coffee.
i also take issue with myth #1. i love dark roasts, latin american coffees (if you’ve never had dominican coffee, go get some. you’ll thank me, i swear) & i brew my coffee strong. i don’t drink starbucks b/c it tastes stale. i don’t know if they leave their coffee out too long or use stale beans, but that is not the flavor of “strong” coffee – at least not good strong coffee.
IMO, Starbucks has gone downhill. See, it started as a company dedicated to a high quality product. But as it has expanded, it’s desire for beans has grown so significantly that it can no longer insist on the highest quality products and thus the standards have been compromised. I used to work for Starbucks and I am disappointed at how things have eventually turned out. They’ve become the McDonnald’s of coffee houses.
Confessions? Hardly. This is pure rah-rah-go-starbucks P.R.
Re: #1 – I roast my own coffee, have been doing it for a couple years now. I also have much invested in home espresso equipment, and I’ve taken a barista course at Intelligentsia in Chicago. I’m no pro, but I think I know a bit about how coffee should taste.
What you taste *is*, in fact, burnt.
The darker you roast coffee, the more “origin” flavor you lose, this is how mega-producers make their swill “consistent”. We can’t have two cups of coffee tasting delicious but different, so let’s make it all taste like crap!
The button pushing “baristas” at any given Starbucks rarely know balls about coffee. They’re mechanized syrup and milk pushers.
Fuzz says, “Real coffee shouldn’t taste like that.”
I’m always amused by the coffee snobs who insist that the millions of people who clearly enjoy Starbucks coffee are ignorant about how “real coffee” should taste.
Burnt is not quite the right word for it… but it’s on the right track. Starbucks has 3 roast grades: Starbucks roast, espresso, and french. All three of these are long past the point where the nuances of the various beans are part of the flavor of the coffee. They overwhelm the coffee with the flavors of the roast in order to inject consistency into a wildly variable agricultural product on a massive scale. In my opionion it’s not a bad flavor… and if you’ve grown up on tin can coffee it’s a revelation for a little while, but it’s a bit monotonous and eventually you want to taste the bean as well as the roast.
Americanos are vile drinks with no body and are no substitute for well made drip coffee (at least at the espresso/water ratios that every coffee shop I’ve had one in serves them), but that’s just my opinion.
Usually, confessions involve something juicy or saucy about the company in question. They help the consumer wade through the bullcrap to get to the interesting bits. This is not a confession. This is someone who works for Starbucks explaining to me why a cup of their coffee SHOULD cost four bucks. The only “confession” in the entire article is that frappucinos are overpriced… and I already knew that, because everything Starbucks sells is overpriced.
I agree with the suggestion to ask for a short cap or a latte. The flavor is better because the balance of espresso and milk is better. One could also ask for a tall double shot latte or cap, but to me, it’s too milky.
Another tip: Ask for your chai latte without water. It will taste a lot stronger. When chai lattes were introduced years ago, they only put in the chai base and milk. I guess people thought it was too strong so they started diluting it with water. If you never had it without the water, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
I had fun working for Starbucks while in college.
It tastes burnt, even if that’s not what it is. I know the difference between “dark roast” and “burnt,” thanks. My home coffeemaker brews up some nice, strong Ethiopian, the darkest that Common Ground carries, and it tastes mildly chocolatey, not burnt, even without the touch of milk and sugar I add.
I hate it when people try to tell supertasters what they’re tasting.
This is way too well-written and error-free to be a barista confession!
I smell a Starbucks flack!!!
I just love all the “burnt coffee” comments. If it weren’t for Starbucks, most of you people wouldn’t have any real exposure to coffee and coffee culture to begin with.
Before Starbucks, the most exposure the average American had to gourmet coffee — if they were extremely lucky — was the neighborhood corner coffee shop. If they were unlucky, it was the watery brown crap served at whatever breakfast plast they ate.
Starbucks comes along, and suddenly everyone’s a snooty coffee snob, talking about the roast time and method, the quality of the bean, and on, and on.
Get over yourselves. You bash Starbucks coffee as “burnt” because it makes you look knowledgeable in the eyes of your cohort of coffee snobs. It’s trendy to bash Starbucks’ coffee quality, and the only thing more elite than walking around with that ‘bucks cup in your hand, is walking around pretending to be too good to drink ‘bucks coffee.
Most of you people rattling off the “burnt coffee” mantra wouldn’t know a good roast if it tied you to a chair and perched on your nose.
wow. maybe this isn’t news to some of y’all, but not only do we have a trendy national chain to artificially inflate coffee prices, but an “official” association to keep them there and dictate standards to do so? Ah, the power of the herd mentality….
How many “man hours” does it really take to pour hot water into coffee? Ridiculous justification for charging more for less actual coffee.
@hoosier45678:
If you order an Americano you have to take the amount of espresso they put in one size up. If not it does taste rather weak. But thats my opinion
@sifr: How about this insult: “It tastes like coffee.”
That’s it. Disgusting. I’ve never tasted any coffee I’d willingly buy and drink myself. (And yes, friends have bought for me and I’ve willingly tried almost every combinination of popular types of coffee at local places. It’s all nasty.)
@mantene: I used to work at Peet’s coffee, who don’t burn their beans, and we made our brewed coffee ridiculously strong, even stronger than they recommend. I used to water it down for some customers at request. It never, ever, ever tasted burnt. Also? The last time I got Starbucks coffee it tasted weak and burnt, much weaker than the non-Starbucks beans I grind at home.
@sifr: Bite me, if I hadn’t been drinking fancy coffee before Starbucks existed where I lived I wouldn’t have known that it sucks from the start.
@bdgbill:
I don’t think he was implying that Starbucks would REFUSE to put 3 shots into a drink, just that 3 shots would be too much for the base drink.
Well, I’m still not sold on the idea that a frappucino is a bad thing… I’m aware of the HFCS sweetener and the fact that it’s a few bucks, but what’s the alternative? The article would be much more helpful if it elaborated more on the ingredients rather than just mentioning “strange processed food materials”.
I’ve been roasting my own coffee beans at home for the past five years, and I’ve been drinking coffee obsessively for as long as I can remember. There’s no doubt about it: Starbucks (and most west-coast coffee shops) serve coffee that’s been roasted far too long.
Why? Because the darker you roast coffee, the more it all tastes the same. The bright sweetness of a nice Yirgacheffe or the earthy funkiness of a Guatemalan bean is completely lost. This allows them to use sub-par beans. It’s not entirely their fault or even that they’re necessarily being cheap; they’re so successful and need to buy so much coffee that it simply wouldn’t be possible to buy the best quality beans. There’s not enough of them to go around.
I give them credit for creating a business based around this, and managing to successfully market burnt coffee as “gourmet”. But I invite anyone to come over to my house for breakfast for a French-press, light-roasted Yirgacheffe and see if they still think Starbucks is worth their time.
>>”Iced coffee is brewed double strength before it’s poured over ice in order to give it the regular strength of coffee.”
Hmmm, never thought about doing it that way. I found the trick to making iced coffee was to cool it down first (using regular strength) before pouring it on ice. Although that takes some waiting before you can drink any.
@enm4r: It’s one thing to not like coffee. It’s another thing altogether to drink coffee, but run around telling everyone “Starbucks sucks!” for no other reason than everyone else thinks Starbucks sucks, and you’re somehow less cool if you deign to actually admit to drinking Starbucks coffee.
Starbucks isn’t the best coffee in the world by a longshot, but it’s not the muddy swill many make it out to be, and all these overnight master roasters have the privilege and pleasure of shopping at smaller coffee chains precisely because Starbucks opened the floodgates of the coffeeshop market and made it possible for places like SBC, Peet’s, Common Grounds, and similar chains to spring into existence.
Hell, most of them turn a profit simply by letting people believe they’re the anti-Starbucks, as though one large, faceless corporation is less evil than another.
You know what the real problem is? Starbucks polluting the gastronomical landscape with their frozen coffee-like beverages that have about as much in common with coffee as a bag of wet snow peas does.
That, and the d*ck-size wars that spring up around which Snooty McSnooterton has the longest, most complex frozen or hot coffee-like fluid order, with the most obscure options.
Every last person caught up in that entire scene should be forced to chase mouthfuls of MRE instant coffee with lukewarm water for about ten years.
[baristabrat.blogspot.com]
Anyway, regarding the “burnt” coffee, yes, Starbucks does roast their beans longer than most, but I wouldn’t call it burnt. It’s just that most of the coffee they sell tends to be dark roasted.
The mild roast (like the Latin American) beans they sell aren’t nearly as dark. Compare them to something like their Verona blend and it will be quite obvious. Of course these are a bit more acidic, but I don’t think anyone’s complaining about that besides the original poster.
(I was a SBUX barista for two years…)
Most other coffee shops and restaurants will barely even use half that much coffee. The coffee then ends up tasting much stronger than what most casual coffee drinkers are used to.
OIC…it’s simply the stupid consumers who haven’t been exposed to the greatness that is Starbucks.
I’d drink Peet’s or Coffee Bean or even 7-11 or Quik-Chek coffee before buying Starbucks’ overpriced swill.
Consumerist–you’ve been punk’d with this “Confession.”
@Shadowman615:
Actually, it’s brewed double-strength AND refrigerated. The iced coffee brew stays in a pitcher and is typically made once a day, since almost no one orders iced regular coffee.
Wow, nice press release. If I send an advertisement to Consumerist, will you run it for free as well?
Starbucks coffee tastes burnt because they roast the beans for far too long (hence the nicknames “Starburnt” or “Charbucks”), not because their coffee is so much more magically strong than that served elsewhere.
I also love how the big move Starbucks made to automated machines, the thing that took all of the craftsmanship and quality out of their coffee, is somehow touted here as something good for customers. Yay, an automated machine must be vastly better than an experienced barista at pulling a shot, right? Hey, why not get rid of the barista altogether and just use vending machines to serve coffee?
@sifr: You said it!
@alicetheowl: supertasters?? c’mon really?
I can’t detect a burnt taste in Starbucks coffee at all. Weird. OTOH, Peet’s coffee tastes bitter and burnt to me. I grew up in Germany which has wonderful coffee — rich and full-bodied without any bitterness — and so far I haven’t found any American coffee with the same taste. Is there something different about the way the beans are roasted for European consumers?
I too must speak up against the Myth #1.
A (hopefully brief) preamble:
I’m Croatian. I was born – and grew up – in the part of Europe that had regular, extended contact with Turkish empires (and thus, their delicious coffee) while most of the rest of the world was still barely past the brachiating stage. In Turkey, and thus by proxy in countries neighboring Croatia (such as Bosnia) ‘coffee’ is not a drink – it is a ritual akin to japanese tea ceremonies. It is prepared and brewed religiously and served meticulously and traditionally. In my corner of the world, sitting down for a coffee is not unlike american grill-out or football night – an axis of a regular social gathering.
Thus, I still take my coffee very religiously. I hand-pick my beans, I hand-grind them in a grinder I inherited from my grandma, I brew the coffee in traditional ‘cezve’ (odd-shaped brass coffee pot) and serve it in real ‘fildzan’ – small, shot-sized cups. So served, turkish coffee is sipped for extended periods of time, its fiendish strength mellowed by turkish and greek sweets such as halva or rahatluk. Most of my american friends find this coffee far too strong for their liking, at least initially – yet even the most devoted coffee-maniacs on these shores will admit it tastes far better than coffees they get from their Starbucks or percolate in their homes or offices.
Having so established my credentials (you’ll have to take my word for them) I will make the following claim : Starbucks coffee doesn’t taste burnt because it’s strong. It tastes burnt because it is, in fact, burnt. No amount of claims of ‘acidic’ or ‘stronger than thou’ brews will hide that fact. And yes, I know turkish coffee is not the same as ‘cappucinos’ and ‘espressos’ Starbucks purports to brew. But keep in mind, Croatia is stone’s throw away from Italy as well… we know our coffees.
@sifr:
I worked as a barista back in the mid-80s. The only thing I learned from Starbucks is what charred coffee tastes like. While it may have improved since the last time I tried to drink it lo these many years ago (I want to say 2000, maybe?), that shit was burned. Not just roasted too dark for the bean. Not just unnuanced and lacking appreciation for the unique qualities of the bean. Burned with the occasional rancid undertone.
Now I’m not sure if the ‘barista’ is a PR lackey for Starbucks or just a naive and trusting employee who has bought the corporate talking point, but that argument that people just aren’t used to dark roasts is just plain stupid.
I love coffee, but unfortunately caffeine and I don’t get along too well (circulation problem, I guess). However, frappucinos are disgusting. If people knew the nutritional information for one, they probably wouldn’t get them. I had a small one and it was like having a wendy’s frosty or something like that. Bleaah. No wonder we’re all fat.
“Earthy tones” FTW! Just another way to say it tastes like dirt.
The only thing that is bringing Starbucks “downhill” is the fact that soccer moms now insist on bringing their noisy brats to what used to be an oasis of peace and quiet in the city.
To all those who are saying I don’t know what a good cup of coffee tastes like, I ask you this: How the hell do you know I don’t know? What, are you a mind reader? or is it because I say I don’t like Starbucks coffee, so therefore I must not know what I’m talking about?
Sorry, get over yourselves.
I prefer coffee from small shops that actually care what their coffee tastes like, lest they lose their customers for brewing a shitty cup of coffee. But I guess that makes me a snob now, and my opinion irrelevant.
@alicetheowl:
LMAO! Supertasters???
“Excuse me? Excuse me boy?? I will have a cup of you finest Dominican coffee. Oh, and by the way, I am a SUPERTASTER. So make sure it’s in a clean cup and I will tell you what the guy who picked the beans ate for breakfast that day”
maybe posting this early in the morning was a bad idea. looks like the caffeine addicts are chomping at the bit.
Well, I’m glad my story has caused some confusion, but I’ll have you know I’m no PR bot. I just like coffee. If I was a PR bot, why would I tell you to avoid Frappucinos because of their high profit margins.
Anyway, when I say “most people,” I mean MOST people. I didn’t say that YOU find that the coffee tastes burnt because it’s brewed stronger, just that MOST people do.