SEATTLE - Starbucks Corp. will start serving up a new “everyday” brew Tuesday, hoping the signature blend will help revive slumping sales in its crucial U.S. market.
To celebrate the launch, it will give away free 8-ounce cups of Pike Place Roast — named after its first store in Seattle’s famed public market — at more than 7,000 U.S. stores from 12 to 12:30 p.m. EDT.
In a statement Monday, Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Schultz touted Pike Place Roast for its bold flavor, smooth finish and “subtle, rich flavors of cocoa and toasted nuts.”
It will be freshly roasted, hand-scooped, freshly ground and brewed in small batches that sit for no longer than 30 minutes. It will be brewed, both regular and decaf, alongside rotating coffees of the week, and sold by the whole bean for $9.95 per pound.
Starbucks developed Pike Place Roast — testing some 30 roasts and 30 blends — after consulting with nearly 1,000 customers who sought a line of drip coffee that wouldn’t switch from, say, an earthy Sumatra one week to a bright, citrusy Ethiopia Sidamo the next.
Consistently, customers kept saying: “Give us a coffee we can count on every day, all day, all week,” Andrew Linnemann, Starbucks master coffee blender, said Tuesday in a conference call with reporters.
Starbucks has spent the last few months sharpening its focus on the basics — a strategy Schultz is pushing as part of the company’s efforts to reinvigorate its U.S. business, which has suffered amid a soft economy and growing competition from rivals ranging from McDonald’s Corp. and Dunkin’ Donuts to Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Caribou Coffee and small, independent coffee shops.
I wonder if Starbucks has over-extended itself with too many stores and coffee baristas trying to sell the Starbucks brew. From where I live, I can go to four Starbucks' stores within a half-mile radius, plus the Starbucks store inside the local Safeway grocery store, plus the Barnes and Noble cafe that serves Starbucks' coffee. And if I want to just get the Starbucks coffee for my coffee-maker, I could find Starbucks coffee being sold at definitely Safeway and Albertsons, and probably at Whole Foods, Longs Drugs, Nob Hill, and a few other grocery and drug stores. Starbucks coffee is everywhere. If you have a Starbucks coffee store within a couple-block radius and are selling your coffee in just about every grocery or drug store, is it no wonder that perhaps your sales are getting a little too sluggish with all this coffee being sold to an over-caffeinated American public? And if you look at a Starbucks coffee shop, they no longer roast or grind their own beans in stores. There is no longer the sweet, pungent aroma of coffee hovering around the Starbucks store--you could just as easily get your coffee from McDonalds, 7-Eleven, or Dunkin' Donuts! Starbucks has become sterilized. It has become an uber-efficient factory selling fast coffee to on-the-go Americans like McDonalds sells fast food. Somewhere, in that frantic desire to become the biggest coffee company in the world, Starbucks lost the image of what a coffee house should really be--a unique place where the atmosphere and coffee aroma relaxes and rejuvenates you. A place of charm where you could lose yourself within a good book, or hang out with old friends to discuss world politics and social issues over lattes. Will Starbucks be able to regain their sales with this Pikes Peak Roast blend?
We'll just have to see.
i tasted the pike's peak blend today. it was almost perfect. i read somewhere the ceo touting that the coffee was going to be so good, you didn't even need to put sugar in it. well, i drank mine black and it was heavenly. can't wait to get another cup.
ReplyDeleteHello Emerson:
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for your comment. I haven't tried Pike's Peak blend--will probably try it once I finish the rest of my Starbucks Sumatra whole bean coffee. I'll admit that there are also so many different coffee blends being sold--Starbucks, Peets, Seattle's Best, Dunkin' Donuts, and the grocery store coffee labels. I'm pretty much open-minded when it comes to coffee--it just has to be whole bean coffee. And I'll probably like Pike Place Roast whole bean coffee as well.
What I found rather interesting about the story isn't the coffee, but a combination of consumers complaining about wanting a Starbucks coffee they could count on every week, and the current atmosphere of the Starbucks' stores. I can see consumers wanting a coffee they could count on each day, rather than having to decide between Sumatra or French Roast. What I find so funny here is that Starbucks does have a coffee consumers could count on every day--it is called House Blend! All Starbucks needed to do was to brew a leaded House Blend, a leaded flavor blend, and a decaf blend. But Starbucks obviously wanted to make a profit, and to confront new competition from the Dunkin' Donuts coffee craze to create another House Blend.
Then there is the atmosphere of the Starbucks stores. Starbucks streamlined their entire store operation to make it more like a factory, rather than a regular coffee store. That is great if you want to sell to the latte-drowning, get-my-coffee-before-I-go-to-work crowd, but why should someone like me pay $2.00 for a coffee at a Starbucks shop, when I could brew my own coffee at home? For me, going to a Starbucks coffee store is about the atmosphere, the aroma of coffee tingling your senses, the music, the people coming through to purchase their coffee. The worst thing Starbucks did was to remove their coffee roasting and grinding process, thus removing the coffee aroma. That takes out the fun of going to a Starbucks store.
But I'll certainly be curious to take a taste of Pikes Peak Roast Blend.