PurelyCoffeeBeans wonders which movies and TV shows you’ve seen Starbucks coffee featured in since it exploded across the US markets in the 1990’s.
Of course, everyone remembers Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan playing the roles of Joe “NY152” Fox and Kathleen “Shopgirl” Kelly in You’ve Got Mail ordering their daily ‘regimen’ of coffee!
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What will I learn about Starbucks Coffee?
- How do I personalize my Starbucks drink?
- What’s your Starbucks coffee order?
- What is a flat white? A guide for Americans @ Starbucks’ next hit!
How do I buy Starbucks Whole Bean Coffee?
- Can you buy coffee beans at Starbucks?
- Which Starbucks coffee beans are the best?
- What is the best Starbucks dark roast?
- What is the lightest Starbucks coffee?
- Is Starbucks Coffee good quality?
How do I personalize my Starbucks drink? 87,000 combinations but which one is yours?
Top Coffee Brands 2020 (all parts)
In 2020, we’re ranking the top 118 brands of coffee, and creating our own list of Amazon’s Best Coffee Brands:
- 2020 Top Coffee Brands List Part 1 – 25~21
- 2020 Top Coffee Brands List Part 2 – 20~16
- 2020 Top Coffee Brands List Part 3 – 15~11
- 2020 Top Coffee Brands List Part 4
- 2020 Top Coffee Brands List Part 5
But few people realize that Starbucks started serving its popular coffee drinks way back in 1971. Yes, 1971! So can you figure out how many coffees they’ve made & sold since then? Somehow, despite the sheer volume, they’ve managed to differentiate their branding, products, and services from other major coffee brands.
Since then millions of people have adopted the Starbucks coffee habit, you can read more about the Starbucks Company story here.
When a customer strolls up to the counter at Starbucks, they are offered a virtual smorgasbord of options for creating their drink: hot or iced, decaff or not, tall or grande, extra shot…?
It would take a while and many cups of coffee to verify the Starbucks’ claim that there are 87,000 different permutations of their coffees. I’ve given up, but occasionally I will try a different cup of coffee or syrup flavor.
What’s your Starbucks coffee order?
If you’re having trouble ordering your favorite Starbucks drink or the following phrases have trouble: “I’ll have a ‘For Here, Grande, Non-Fat, No Water, Decaff, Latte'”, then you may want to Crack the Starbucks Code.
What’s most important is that the baristas know how to make the permutation of Starbucks coffee you need or regularly consume. For me, it’s tall (occasionally grande), dry Americano with a touch of milk (lo-fat or not) served hot in a real mug. What’s your permutation?
But there’s more to Starbucks than 87000 permutations of coffee in a mug! For example, did you know that, starting in 2006, they decided to buy only organic coffee that was cultivated through environmentally sustainable methods?
What is a flat white? A guide for Americans @ Starbucks’ next hit!
“Buying a coffee in New York City poses an interesting cultural dilemma for a Brit who has just moved to stateside after a year and a half living in Australia: how to order a flat white. … The flat white changed my life. Or, more precisely, slightly altered my morning routine. It is both creamy and intensely caffeinated. It is still the only coffee I really drink.”
Quick introduction to the flat white coffee now available in Starbucks US stores. Give it a try, especially if you like Cappuccinos and find their Latte just too milky!
Can you buy coffee beans at Starbucks?
What interests PurelyCoffeeBeans.com isn’t the over the counter frothy or milky coffee market per se, but rather the coffee beans that they sell. They do market a daily blend or brew which features one of the recent brands at a more moderate price.
It’s a Komodo! Dark Roasted but with a little less caffeine!
But if you look a little further you will see the coffee beans from Starbucks
Which Starbucks coffee beans are the best?
Their typical blend is one of the best-selling blends in the States: Starbucks Breakfast Blend Coffee, a fresh and flavorsome roast preferred by many coffee drinkers in the morning. This blend of coffee beans is even now available in Starbucks or in Costco, and has earned its stripes as one of Starbucks’ more popular!
I particularly like their House Blend or even the Decaf version as the flavor is full-bodied and satisfying. There is even an Espresso roast that is perfect for your Italian style homemade cappuccinos, lattes and espressos. Available, too, as Decaf. Perfect if you need to make cappuccino or latte in the morning!
What is the best Starbucks dark roast?
But you may also find other blends particularly enjoyable, such as Cafe Verona is a bolder coffee with a rich body, drunk by many after dinner. Or the Gold Coast Blend.
The Starbucks Italian Roast Coffee is a good example of a darkly roasted coffee bean. Its slightly smoky, sweet flavor makes excellent Italian coffee drinks. These are bold roasts with multi-region sourced beans.
Another contender is the Starbucks Sumatra Coffee which is regarded as intense and aromatic. It’s also available in Decaf version. I reckon Sumatran coffee ranks among the best of Indonesias coffee sent for export! Among other Starbucks’ Asia/Pacific regular coffees, you’ll find tasty treats from Bali; Vietnam; and even China’s southern province of Yunnan!
Whereas African coffee displays more fruitiness, floral character, and perhaps even a dash of winey notes. Kenya, Ethiopia, and Yemen are prominent sources, but you’ll also find coffee from Tanzania and many other countries. Look for Starbucks’ “East Africa Blends” or even their Tanzanian Blends.
What is the lightest Starbucks coffee?
Since Starbucks coffee features beans from all over the world, each with its own unique flavor and aromas, there are other choices of medium and mild roasts compatible with more North American tastes than the usual darker roasts of Europe.
- If you like more unusual specialist coffees, you might find Starbucks’ Peru Chanchamayo palatable blend with its subtle, nutty undertones. This coffee is cultivated in the Andes in central Peru where the cooler climes and careful techniques allow the cherries to ripen slowly, this produces a lighter flavor and it’s grown with FairTrade Certification, too.
- Other limited production and seasonal coffees are also worth trying. One suggested blend is Mexico Chiapas coffee, which is a shade grown coffee from the rich soils of the Southern volcanic mountains in Mexico. Starbucks’ customers look forward to each year to tasting this coffee because of its nuances of chocolate and hazlenut. It is noted for a smooth flavor, even coming across as almost sweet.
- You can find a great variety of Latin American coffees from light and well-rounded flavors to smooth and refreshing, such as Colombian Coffee noted for its nutty finish or Costa Rican or Guatemala Antigua. There are many Starbucks blends, too many to link to here, but you can find more by searching through the Starbucks range of coffee products: including coffee beans, coffee blends and grinds.
Recently, Starbucks has also begun selling a very successful instant coffee called Starbucks Via Ready Brew. While I have tried it and found it somewhat better than instant coffee, many people rave about how much better it is than other instant coffees. While that may not be exactly true, changing people’s perceptions about coffee isn’t something that Starbucks has been reluctant to do in the past.
Is Starbucks Coffee good quality?
Starbucks’ emphasis on buying good quality coffee beans helps enhance the coffee brand with coffee lovers everywhere! You can read more about the company’s story at Starbucks Coffee company.
How much caffeine is there in Starbucks Coffee?
I tabulated the data for you in a nice graphic, so you can check the amount of caffeine in your typical Americano coffee or espresso based coffee shots. You should note that the amount of caffeine is an estimate, and individual batches may vary.
Starbucks Blonde Roast: contains more caffeine!
Lighter roasts, like the blonde roast, may also contain higher amounts of caffeine than dark roasts or espresso coffee because more of the caffeine is removed by the roasting process itself. In fact, Starbucks coffee page lists an Americano vs Americano blond roast as 225mg:255mg. So that’s about 10% more caffeine.
The Pike Place roasts also show about 15% more caffeine per mug – 310mg vs 350mg.
Also, even the decaffeinated coffee can contain residual caffeine from the decaffeination process. No decaffeinated coffee is 100% decaffeinated. Starbucks own Decaffeinated Pike Place roast shows 25mg of caffeine. So if you’re particularly sensitive to caffeine, you need to find a good alternative.
Search for Starbucks Coffee products @ Amazon Inc.
This is me drinking coffee in Starbucks
I do have one request of Starbucks, or rather one wish, that would be to see them make much more of the coffee beans they have on their shelves. How? By actually using them to make coffee for customers in the store. That simple: an order could specify ‘Kenya AA’ or ‘Guatemala Antigua’. How nice!
How nice it would be to try some other flavors or blends of coffees instead of their House Blends. Of course, other preparation methods and customer education would be essential, but that’s what they are doing anyway. But at least I can make decent coffee from Starbucks beans at home.
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