Starbucks and Clover, a revisit…
The two things that trouble me the most about Starbucks purchasing the Coffee Equipment Company are that the system is now proprietary to Starbucks and that Schultz is pretty hazy when it comes to defining quality coffee.
The proprietary thing. Oh where to start. It’s not clear if Starbucks will sell to other roasters or cafes that don’t use their coffee, but given their track record, I doubt it pretty heavily. So that means that all the smaller roasters and cafes who are truly at the forefront of coffee – that were either using to planning on using the clover to bring customers along that exploration with them while respecting the pace that the majority of customers keep while honoring the things we know about serving coffee the best it can be – are going to be put on serious hold. There just isn’t another device like it that I am aware of.
That said, I don’t believe that the Clover was/is the magic pill. By all accounts, it is a finicky beast to get set right, differnt for each coffee, manual attention. Sound familiar?. And without a doubt, it simply won’t make mediocre coffee better than it is – and I think that I remember a post on http://godshot.blogspot.com/search?q=clover that stated that it actually highlighted it’s problems due to it’s clarity. Vacuum pot coffee does this.
A lot of the discussion I am seeing has talked about how the clover will no longer be a point of differentation to cafes who have them – and obviously it won’t be an avenue for any other independent cafes. I don’t really want to get into a branding discussion, partly because my interest in the clover was more altruistic and educational than differentiation from other cafes.
Simply put, it was the best way to offer a variety of coffees and educate customers on how to perceive various coffee flavor profiles with a low entry point. Only the most expensive coffee broke $10/cup. But exquisite coffees that retail around $50/lb end up being $3-5 for a cup. An easy entrance with little risk and large payoff in loyalty and engagement with my customers.
And this is where I think that Schultz is caught in a confusion between “returning to Starbucks roots” and actually regaining (sic) any integrity in third wave speciatly coffee. He’s speaking marketing, not coffee. Check this out:
“This acquisition will provide us with an opportunity to give customers individually brewed cups of some of Starbucks most exotic coffees,” said Schultz. “In my over 25 years with Starbucks, the Clover machine unequivocally delivers the best cup of brewed coffee I have ever tasted.”
and this:
Starbucks challenged its coffee and roasting teams to create the world’s most exceptional coffee blends. The result of those efforts is the new Pike Place Roast. Beginning in mid-April, this unique new coffee will be brewed in every U.S. company-operated store every day, giving customers a unique, consistent and fresh brewed coffee experience.
Within the same speech, he is pushing individually brewed exotic coffees and and a concept of “the perfect” cup. An idealized notion of coffee that doesn’t jive with the reality of the best coffees available. In fact, as people on the edge are learning more, as growers are getting better and better, we are realizing that what we thought was an origin profile doesn’t stick. Minas Gerais is not the same as coffees from the Cerrado. Huehuetenango is not the same as a Coban.
But that is what Howard does. He and his company romance the idea of coffee. The idea of the cafe experience. But in the end, I have no confidence in their true desire to actually develop those experiences. They want to craft the experience in your mind before you even enter the store so that you are already convinced of what you are going to get. And as long as you are not surprised, you will get it cause that is what you believe.
And yeah, that’s something that we all do. Stumptown does it quite well. Intelligentsia does it too. Ritual, Blue Bottle, Ecco, Victrola… and cafes do it. The thing about the places I mentioned is that they actually back up the image they provide. They put an enormous amount of effort into carrying out what they say they do – as opposed to crafting their words to make it seem like they do – with enough effort so it isn’t obvious how much bloat in in their organization.
And that is the thing that is the most disappointing about this sale. With everything I know, the clover isn’t going to the mechanism that it could have been in the progression of consumer coffee. It will be this beautiful thing that is caring an okay product. Form and content won’t be in sync. And it will be half-baked. Granted, it will at least bring the notion of individual coffees to a hugely broader public. But I just don’t see Starbucks being able to communicate much about them, their history, or anything. That just isn’t really core to their brand identity. The unveiling of their new mark (co-initiated with Conservation International – who should be able to do a great amount of good with this partnership, btw) is an indication of that.
Oh, and the announcement of their new espresso machine, something like a uber-super automatic… and they still don’t have very interesting espresso. I mean, when was the last time you really wanted to get a double in an starbucks? Is brewed coffee going to be any different in their culture?
That’s pretty much all I wanted to say.
