Starbucks' Pike Place is the "unanimous favorite" in a coffee taste-test

Starbucks' mild roast beat Dunkin' Donuts' Original Blend in a taste-test conducted by the St. Petersburg, Florida Times. In the Iced Mocha test, McDonald's was the winner, with Starbucks coming in second. Dunkin' Donuts finished last. || Read "Coffee Wars: Taste test of different coffee products"

Comments

[pikeyikes]

That's like comparing a KIA to a SAZUKI; the lesser of two woeful evils ... wow, Starbucks has succeeded in bringing the very best donut shop/convenience store coffee to our world?! How would Pike stand up to Peets Major Dickason's blend?? Bet we won't read about that!!

[Hirayuki]

I tried one of McD's coffee drinks the other day. It was cloyingly sweet (even with SF syrup) and nasty. I will never, ever drink one again as long as I live, and I question the tastebuds of the citizens of St. Pete's.

[SBUCKS DRONE LOS ANGELES]

Wow, what a surprise. Pike Place Roast, first place? Personally, I don't really have anything against PPR. McD's coffee is ok, but it's not amazing like some people say. I would have to say that the Iced Mocha from McD's is a little to sweet for my taste, but the Iced Mocha from Starbucks is too bitter. I'll have an Iced Mocha from Intelligentsia anyday, but I have to drive all the way to Silver Lake or Venice Beach to get one. Eh, it's worth the drive.

[truth]

Mmmmm..... Astroturf......

[expired shot]

ummm, McMocha has a good flavor first sip, cause all you get is pure whipped fat and sugar, but once your taste buds get past the excitement of sugar lard, and you taste the espresso...truly disgusting. It's highly acidic, and tastes like breakfast blend that has sat out in fresh air for 2 months.

[WhoPUPU?]

McCafe Mochas make me poo all over my leg!! ooopps!!

[PPR_Lover]

Melody, where are your comments on this one??? I thought EVERYONE hated Pike Place Roast and it was a bad coffee?

[BOSTON STARBUCKS REBEL]

PPR Love,
Maybe when they did the taste test all they had on was Pike Puke and wouldn't brew them a BOLD coffee?

BOSTON STARBUCKS REBEL
PRIMUS INTER PARES
STARBUCKS REBEL ALLIANCE
AIM SN: BOSTONSTARREBEL

[Coffee Soldier]

I don't think PPR is bad when you compare it to other coffees available in my area (D&D, Green Mountain, Panera, 7-11 swill) but it's just not great when you put it up next to Kenya or Italian Roast or something really BOLD that we are used to drinking at Starbucks.....Interestingly enough in the past year that Pike Place Roast has been available I have only run into 2 people who wanted me to brew them a different coffee everyone else takes it and seems to like it. Each day we go through about 8 pounds of PPR by 10am and only about 3 lbs of whatever the Morning Pick or Bold Pick or whatever we are calling it today...the customers actually request the PPR.....maybe it's because I'm in New England the Dunkin Capital of the world?!??! Who knows!!

[Thought of the Day]

Wow, Nice to know $tarbucks is sitting with the best among them: Dunkin, Mickey D's and 7-11.... What does that tell ya!
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah.........

[Melody]

[quote]Melody, where are your comments on this one??? I thought EVERYONE hated Pike Place Roast and it was a bad coffee?[/quote]

There's not much to say. It's a taste test between Dunkin Donuts and PPR?? The DD coffee is awful. I don't see any great win here.

Maybe you haven't noticed what I've been saying about PPR. I never said that everyone hates it. I often (though not recently) site an MSI survey where 15% of respondents listed PPR as their fave out of a select list of coffees.

My main themes have been (i) core coffee customer get treated like 2nd class customers (ii) Brew on demand fails to work because of the flat out resistance, or "no" from baristas, the bad attitude about brewing another coffee etc... (iii) customers who complain that they're told "we're out of Sumatra for the day" (when they're surrounding by pounds of it on the shelf) get treated bad for complaining, and get labeled as "they're just complainers" (iv) the legendary customer service that gave Starbucks its name is GONE at least 80% of the time when it comes to this problem of customers who like the classic Starbucks coffees.

See the recent post by "Tess" in the open thread.

The bottom line is that baristas should immediatelyOFFER to brew the other coffee without having to engage in an interrogation of why he or she doesn't want an Americano.

(For this post only, I put a link in my name to a blog entry by MSI where Starbucks TELLS customers that baristas will "offer to brew" coffee ... ["your barista should offer to brew a fresh batch while acknowledging the wait time. "])

I believe firmly that Starbucks has a long life ahead of it as a business. I have no doubt that there will be a "Starbucks experience" for a long time to come with people connecting over their latte and espresso drinks, and having Starbucks as their 3rd place; Great good places. It just won't be a coffee experience. Coffee is a geography ... or at least it used to be. Now it's just Latin America.

By the way, I used to have the utmost love for the whole bean coffee at Starbucks. I still buy it for home but I am starting at times to question the freshness of it. Since Starbucks isn't about the whole bean, the whole bean coffee just sits on the shelves. Sure, you can pick up a bag before the 34 weeks of the stamp on the back have gone by, but that's 8 months.

After about 3 to 4 months in a flavorlock bag, which isn't perfect in keeping a highly highly perishable product fresher, it's just questionable to me whether that's a high quality product anymore.

[Melody]

I just spent some time really reading the Wikepedia entry on New Coke: (and now running late for work)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke

^ Totally fascinating. Of course I remember much of that when it happened but not all of it. It took several years for Coke to correct the problems it created by introducing New Coke.

I found this quote in the Wikepedia entry which totally rang a little too true for me:

**Company headquarters in Atlanta started receiving angry letters expressing deep disappointment and anger at executives. Over 400,000 calls and letters were received by the company.[17] A psychiatrist Coke hired to listen in on phone calls to the company hotline, 1-800-GET-COKE, told executives some people sounded as if they were discussing the death of a family member.[23]**

Of course, Starbucks coffee doesn't have the market share of Coca Cola, but MSI represents about 180,000 registered users; I am sure each one of us represent TENS OF THOUSANDS of people.

Starbucks boasts nearly 40 million customers per week. At that volume, if voice on MSI, even if it is 2 people saying "please give us sugar free whip cream" could represent tens of thousands of people.

But better yet, I'd LOVE to be a fly on the wall and listen to the conversations if Starbucks created a 1-800 number like "1-800-GET-BOLD" and really really pushed it in the stores and on their site. Though it might be all too late now since it has been 14 months of PPR.

[Christin]

But Melody, 15% preferred PPR out of how many coffees? Working for starbucks now for 3 years i don't know that any 1 coffee gets anywhere close to a majority of customers preference. As the old saying goes you can't please everyone. Even people that prefer the Bold COD sometimes choose PPR when we are brewing certain bolds.

LIke it or not, PPR lovers are the silent majority. Yes some people hate it, and they are very vocal about it. But that doesn't mean its less popular than any other coffee.

However, I TOTALLY agree with Melody on her stance for baristas behaviors. It's rediculous some of the responses baristas give customers when they ask for bold. Or any other coffee for that matter. Labor cuts or not, I still offer french presses when customers are looking for something specific in addition to brewing a fresh bach in the brewer for the Morning pick.

[BOSTON STARBUCKS REBEL]

Christin,
Blacks only make up a minority of the US population and look they got the right to vote.

BOSTON STARBUCKS REBEL

[Aces of Eight]

I'm pretty sure PPR lovers are NOT the silent majority.

It's just that most people are not vocal about it because they don't care.

That's the thing, Starbucks is now catering to people who could care less about sampling different kinds of coffee.

Like it or not that's the issue at hand.

[Melody]

@Aces of Eight - I had a very random thing happen today. I met an intern (wants very much to be a paralegal) who previously worked at the Starbucks Call Center. We talked about PPR. She says that she was totally flooded with calls about PPR. She believes that Starbucks lies about its popularity.

In any event, you're correct that the real issue is that the new Starbucks customer has no idea that coffee is a geography: Latin American left overs will do just fine paired with a Piadini.

[StLouieDrip]

Christin: "But Melody, 15% preferred PPR out of how many coffees? Working for starbucks now for 3 years i don't know that any 1 coffee gets anywhere close to a majority of customers preference."

Several baristas have mentioned to me that Verona was once known the all-time hands-down favorite of partners and also customers, (just ask anyone who have been there longer than 3 years). Verona used to be my fave too, but now it's Sumatra. But if there was ever one all-around coffee to put up as sbux's flagship coffee I would vote for it to be Verona.

Also, PPR might have a higher percentage now because so many of the bold lovers have given up and moved on by now.

[SirenBlazing]

10 years ago it would have been complete blasphemy for Starbucks Coffee Company to be mentioned in the same sentence with McDonalds and Dunkin' Donuts.

It's simply amazing (and incredbily sad) how diluted and devalued the Starbucks brand has become. If Starbucks considers its competitors to be fast food chains and donut shops, well then, you know what? They only have to produce a product one iota better to take that top spot. And that's exactly what you're getting. One better than McDonalds, but at twice the price.

Starbucks: Come back and brag when your latest "taste/preference test" tops some real, reputable competition in your actual market category. Where's the comparisons to Peets, Tully's, et al?

[Sedg]

StLouie: I always, always used to sell Verona as the crowd's coffee. It's perfect for a diverse group of people, because it's got something that appeals to a lot of different palates. Still no sign of PPR over here, so I still can't get involved in these discussions :/

[(former) FLA SM]

"She believes that Starbucks lies about its popularity."

Really? Starbucks lies? I'm SHOCKED!

(Please excuse the mess. My sarcasm just dripped all over the floor.)

[Melody]

Christin,

I agree with St.LouieDrip, that at least in terms of anecdotal evidence, I always always hear baristas call out Verona and Sumatra as faves of customers.

http://blogs.starbucks.com/blogs/customer/archive/2009/02/04/poll-results-what-s-your-favorite-brewed-coffee.aspx

^ And in fact, Verona and Sumatra were the poll results winner.

A more interesting taste-test would be Peet's (or other top-shelf brand) versus Starbucks.

[Christin]

Yes but that poll had a radom weird selection of coffees to choose from. We don't brew everything they allowed to pick from. Infact, my favorite, Kenya, wasn't an option.

But the simple fact is that Brewed coffee sales are UP. Partly due to the economy, but most of that coffe IS PPR. I have tons of customers request it by name.

[StLouieDrip]

"We don't brew everything they allowed to pick from."

And this is exactly the reason that saying PPR is the most preferred, is an error. If you only offer one coffee, and if you won't brew others, you can't say that that one you brew is the most preferred by customers. Or it may very well be that most of your current customers do prefer PPR, since former bold customers have most likely gone elsewhere. By offering only PPR sbux is naturally attracting only customers who want PPR. And it's perfectly reasonable that other customers who want bold will go elsewhere. I've cut my own visits from 20-30 times per month to just 1-2 times per month. In the last 90 days I've been to sbux a grand total of 3 times. That also means I used to go to sbux over 300 times a year, but in the past year I've only gone about 15-20 times. And if we had more indies I'd gladly cut it down to 0. You could say I've also voted in the "poll" by making an exit and finding my preferred coffee at the indies.

But your claim that ton's of customers request PPR by name seems unbelievable. Tons? Really? If it's the only coffee offered nobody really needs to specifically ask for it.

Of course, if drip sales are really up, then offering PPR must be working well for sbux, and the stock price should bounce back real soon.

[pikeyikes]

Ditto StLouieDrip. I could not agree with you more! My wife and I have scaled way back, to only desperate times, such as last evening with a 2hr. drive ahead of us and tired eyes. I also completely agree with you about the diluted brand. We lamented that fact once again yesterday evening as we trudged through PPR ... YUK!! My wife put chocolate and cinnamin in hers just to be able to drink it. I grinned and beared it. They have dummed down their heart and soul, drip coffee, to the level of Micky D's and DD, but still have the "trading up" price tag. What a shame!!

[pills]

Thank you for your interesting article, and your blog is also full of useful information, many find useful information.

[Man]

But your claim that ton's of customers request PPR by name seems unbelievable. Tons? Really? If it's the only coffee offered nobody really needs to specifically ask for it.

Here in Canada, a lot of customers request Pike by name, or "mild". We have both Pike and a bold pick of the week available. Pike is very popular in this neck of the woods, possibly because it slightly resembles Tim Hortons coffee compared to some of the bolder blends.