coffee

This week Willamette Week featured excerpts from their former reporter's book. Taylor Clark wrote Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture (Little, Brown and Company, 304 pages, $25.99). Clark got an advance to write the book after he wrote a story for Willamette Week that "examined the charges commonly lobbed at Starbucks and found some of them had scant grounds."

Here's some interesting excerpts from WW's excerpts:

Starbucks makes "$7.8 billion in annual revenues," most of which doesn't make it to the third-world people who do most of the work to produce the coffee.

"The past few years have featured the lowest
inflation-adjusted coffee prices in history—as low as 41.5 cents per
pound, which is far below the growers’ cost of production.
Take a four-dollar cappuccino, for example. According to statistics
from the Specialty Coffee Association of America, only 5 percent of
that price (20 cents) is the cost of the coffee itself—and that’s for
roasted coffee, which the coffeehouse has already paid to cook,
package, and ship. In reality, a nickel more than covers the farmer’s
take for that cappuccino; that’s less than the cost of the cup, sleeve
and lid (7 cents). At a coffeehouse like Starbucks, you’re paying for
dairy products (10 percent, or 40 cents), labor and overhead (71
percent, or $2.84), and, of course, profit (11 percent, or 44 cents).
Upping farmers’ rates significantly would cost the consumer virtually
nothing—but since that’s not how the free market works, farmers are
stuck struggling."

Starbucks has made big bucks off an addictive drug, caffeine.

"Which, depending on your opinions about the issue, would make Starbucks the world’s biggest pusher. The stakes are high for Starbucks in the caffeine debate. Several former and current Starbucks executives told me that they could imagine only one thing that might bring Starbucks down: conclusive scientific evidence that caffeine is unhealthy. If that were to happen, the company would bear a heavy burden; thanks to Starbucks, we’re taking in more caffeine than ever. The company serves the most potent brew in the coffee-house world, which, on a strong day, packs nearly as much caffeine in a single grande cup as three maximum-strength NoDoz caplets."

EW published a review of Starbucked last week here.

Ironically, just as the book came out so did news that Starbucks may have Starbucked itself.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports :

"Dairy prices have skyrocketed, fast-food chains have made it easier
to find a good cup of joe, and traffic in U.S. stores has flattened
amid high fuel prices and turmoil in the housing and credit markets.

Add it all up, and it's dragged the company's stock down nearly 40 percent in the past year....some are wondering if certain U.S. markets have gotten saturated."

Taylor wrote about the "domination" Starbucks has of its market. "Starbucks now owns its market like few other companies in recent
memory. Here’s a challenge: try to name the number two coffeehouse
chain in America. Any ideas?"

Well, actually, Starbucks isn't the #1 place for coffee any more. After Starbucks showed all the money that could be made, that would now be another big corporation—McDonalds. As the PI reports:

"McDonald's has been testing sweet lattes and other espresso drinks in
800 restaurants across the country this year and on Tuesday announced
plans to roll them out nationally over the next two years. The world's
biggest fast-food chain scored big this spring, when Consumer Reports
ranked its premium coffee No. 1, beating Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts and
Burger King on taste and value."

Ugh! So tired. But oh, my, did Chuck and I enjoy our four days at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, even the less good plays and the, well, disastrous tuna affair at the lame restaurant (all shall be revealed in good time).

Anyway, while we were away, things happened.
1. Nuclear war is OK online. Hey, we ran a story on Second Life. But this? This is creepy.

2. Get back on that rowing machine, Einstein! Exercise makes you smarter. SUCK. Why can't it all be about coffee and wine?

3. For more female equality (and better sex), don't beat your swords into plowshares; just get rid of 'em. Actually, that's but one thing that this Salon story tells us.
Generally women take a broader view of everything, for good Darwinian reasons.

4. Jesus F. Christ, please put down your book and pay attention to flight attendants when they talk about those emergency slides. And here's why.

5. Some dailies still have books coverage. Check out my hometown newspaper! Frankly, I'm shocked. Why? Where's Robert Heinlein on that list, eh?! (He was from KC, after all.)

6. Holy fucking shit: Hamas in kindergarten. If the photo with this story doesn't creep you out, you are not creepable. (Yes, it's totally SFW.)

7. Australia totally screws over its Aboriginal population. Seriously. Over the past six years, at least $30 million of the money the Government promoted as being for Aborigines was used to oppose native title and compensation claims.

8. Bush's Sweeping Push for Democracy Falters. Or so says The Washington Post. But um ... WHAT "push for democracy"? (Or here. Or here. Or here. Or ... )

9. The weekend's weirdest and possibly most counterproductive headline comes from Sunday's O, which ran Illegal immigrants aren't filling jails as the above-the-fold front page story. Um. Thanks, I think.
Online, the story has a different headline.

10. Don't have sex! You'll burn ... down your house!

BONUS: "Help! I'm Hot For an Older Lady in my Church Group!"