Bloggle

In the wake of the Starbucks’ public makeover, and with the SCAA show rapidly approaching, there’s a bevy of coffee-centric ink (’lectronic and otherwise) flowing at the moment. Lots of publications are taking a look at their local coffee scene, trying to figure out who the players are — and discovering that the coffee shop just ain’t what it used to be. (Hoorah.)

Here’s a take on the Pittsburgh coffee scene (featuring the fine folks at Aldo Coffee, among others.)

“Our goal,” offers Rich Westerfield, genial co-owner with wife Melanie Westerfield, of Aldo Coffee on Mt. Lebanon’s Washington Road, “is to raise the level of conversation and appreciation of what coffee can be.”

You go, Rich!

Locally, upper-end coffee shops “have become a central place,” Westerfield says, for many the magical Third Place – after home and work. Priming the French press, Aldo, for example, brings in ska bands and steel drums. One church actually meets there monthly. “Coffee houses bring people together,” he says. “They’re oases of community in a city.”

Ska, steel drums and church groups. Nice.

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America’s Best Boutique Coffees. Forbes offers a glimpse at some of the best indy coffee shops around.

Even though Starbucks, in its fight to retain customers, today unveiled a new brewing strategy and an inaugural blend called Pike Place Roast, most coffee snobs argue that the best java is found at small cafes where each cup is painstakingly crafted. Often tucked away in neighborhoods outside of a city’s financial district, these shops can be difficult to get to for a business traveler, but aficionados say it’s a worthwhile trip.

So where are these boutiques? Well, the article is rather sketchy in that department but if you dig enough you’ll find a link to a spiffy photo gallery of a number of the usual suspects, and some you may not be familiar with.

The SCAA gets its green on. The 20th Specialty Coffee Association of America Conference, this year in be-skywayed downtown Minneapolis, Minn, is making its 2008 conference its greenest ever. Sure, it’s easy enough to collect carbon-offset fees in the conference pricing… but the list of earth-friendly efforts with a more immediate impact is pretty impressive, and includes:

• The elimination of paper hand-outs for more than 100 lectures and labs.
• Food and beverages served with re-useable dishware and cutlery, as well as recyclable cups, whenever possible.
• Metal scraps and light bulbs recycled and 100 percent “green” cleaning products utilized.
• Food and beverages locally grown, in-season and organic, whenever possible.
• Food waste sent from the convention center to a hog farm for use as animal feed, and nonperishable, unopened food products donated to a local homeless shelter.

That’s leading by example. On paper (recycled, natch) I’m impressed, while it remains to be seen how it all works out on the convention floor. I’ll keep an eye out. And maybe I’ll see you there!

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You can send out the press releases. You can stage million dollar opening-day events and sampling programs. Still, some folks just won’t get it right…

• The modern chain is “going back to its roots” and launching a house coffee called Pike Place Blend.
• Yesterday marked the company’s coast-to-coast free tasting, but I got a taste of Pike Place today.
• Pike’s Place was blended to have a smoother, cleaner finish than Starbucks’ other blends.
• Starbuck’s new Pike’s Place roast drips out early in Gold Coast.
• On Tuesday, April 8^th Starbucks launched its newest brew, “Pikes Peak Roast…”

For the record Starbucks’ new blend is called, Pike Place Roast™.

P.S. I really don’t intend to turn this space into yet another Starbucks-watching venue, but — much like a seventy car pile-up on the freeway — it’s just hard to tear your eyes away.

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Continuing its excruciatingly public extreme makeover, Starbucks does a full-court press (release) on… a new coffee blend. Oh, goody.

Sure, while most every other coffee roaster in the land releases new roasts seasonally — you know, to align with new coffee crops and all that — Starbucks’ latest blend is different, apparently. Word is, it’s not… you know, burnt. More, Howie would have us believe this is a pivotal event in Starbucks’ history, even suggesting that it’s a peek into a future that isn’t steeped in an espresso + milk monoculture:

“We’ve been so focused on espresso … that we haven’t done anything to reinvent brewed coffee,” Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz said in an interview.

Profoundly true. Not only has Starbucks done virtually nothing to reinvent brewed coffee — or even support it — their general disregard for drip coffee, press coffee and the like spilled over into the marketplace, where thousands upon thousands of competing independents likewise ignored the possibilities of unique origin coffees. Unless, of course, they could chuck it in a portafilter with decent results. It’s fair to say that only very recently, I’d say the last five or six years — or a time line roughly consistent with the rise of the Cup of Excellence auction program — that the indie retailers have promoted non-espresso coffee with particular enthusiasm. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

And then Howie slips in this dubious bit…

Mr. Schultz says he believes Starbucks has underplayed its expertise in selecting and roasting coffees, something its main competitors don’t specialize in.

It’s left as an exercise for the reader whether Schultz is suggesting Starbucks’ ground-game at origin is better than that of Peet’s, Green Mountain, Stumptown, CounterCulture, Intelligentsia, The Roasterie, Terroir, Thanksgiving, and a few hundred assorted smaller roasters, or whether he doesn’t view them, individually or collectively, as his competitors. Either way, it’s a low blow. And one that may well come back to haunt him.

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