Ten of the worst (health-wise) and most fat-filled Starbucks beverages

Topping the list at CallMeThirsty.com is the Peppermint White Hot Chocolate at 730 calories. It's followed by Iced Peppermint White Mocha at 700 calories. || Read "The Worst and Most Fat-Filled Starbucks Beverages"

Comments

[Shrug]

its more than just pouring coffee in and pressing brew. Everytime we brew coffee (every 8 minutes) The coffee urn must be rinsed, previous beans dumped, filter container rinsed of grounds, fresh beans are scooped and measured, ground accordingly into a pitcher, new filter (which all stick together) put in, coffee is dumped from the pitcher into the filter, and finally brewed. While all of these tasks seem small they add up. Every 8 minutes. Being on the other side of the store from the Espresso bar where or Drive Thru Register where we otherwise must be glued.

[Enlightened Coffee Sage]

"If they wanted to make their bold coffee easier to make I'm sure those very brilliant people in charge could find a way to do that too."

They have. It's the pour-over. (Well, it's not really easier, but it's faster and more efficient and less wasteful.)

The ideal situation for the dedicated bold drinkers would be bold all day. However, even if it's determined that there are enough bold drinkers that the straight urn-to-cup ratio is profitable, there are other problems.

First, if we just ditch PPR, we have the problems that we had before we had it: lack of consistency in our brewed coffee, and loss of customers when our Pick of the Week isn't something they can palate. Pike Place might not be everyone's favorite coffee (or hell, even anyone's favorite coffee), but if it were discontinued, I promise you that there would be a surprising number of unhappy customers, who thought Pike Place wasn't bad and certainly better than the bold we're brewing up this week. So just ditching PPR is out.

Then there's the number of urns we actually have in the store. Most of you may be thinking: "All you need is two, right? One for Pike Place, one for the bold!" No. Think about it: what happens when the coffee runs out? We have to dump the old coffee and brew a fresh batch in that same urn. That means that there are these big 5 - 6 minute gaps when we have no coffee whatsoever. That's good, right? Come into a coffee store and there's no coffee ready? That's even better than there being no variety!

So we need at least 4 urns, so that we can rotate them. When one batch is about to go out, we move it to the side and brew up a fresh batch, and then when the fresh batch is done we dump the old.

But then there's the cleaning issue. Despite what you may think, cleaning the coffee urns takes more than running some water through it and maybe wiping it out with a damp rag. We have to put this cleaning solution in it, and then let it sit for quite a while to let the stuff work its magic. And when I say "quite a while," I'm talking over an hour. Then, after it's done soaking, we have to rinse by putting it on the brewer and hitting "brew" with no coffee in it, so it fills with hot water. We have to do this not once, but twice, to make sure all of those chemicals get out of there.

And this isn't something we can do after we close, because we only have half an hour to close (and we wanna go home at the end of the night!) So we have to at least start cleaning them during business hours.

So suddenly, four urns aren't quite enough, because we need two with coffee and two available for coffee...and none of those can be ones that we're cleaning at the time.

And on top of that, what if someone wants decaf? What if we have to brew up iced coffee? What if we're a store like mine that still brews up decaf frappuccino base? Better hope you don't need any of that right when the bold and PPR are going out!

Well, damn! This is a lot of coffee urns that we have to have, now! At least 5, maybe even 6. And these things are big. Plus, on top of that, we can't just sit them on the counter; they go on these special metal stands that the urns plug into to keep the coffee hot.

So where are we gonna put them? We only have so much counter space.

And, as Shrug points out, there's a deceptive amount of labor that goes into making a pot of coffee; a few more steps than you'd expect, and those steps add up when you're busy.

Plus Starbucks has to buy those urns, plus the metal stand thingies for them, plus additional cleaning solution for them.

So all in all, that's a lot of extra stuff that has to go into us brewing bold all day.

I know that it'd be wonderful if, when you walk in the store, you were greeted by a smiling barista who told you that we had plenty of bold brewed up and they just turned around and poured you a cup, rather than being told to wait 5 minutes by a barista who's cursing under their breath and looking at you like you're a salty pain in their ass.

But the unfortunate truth is that dedicated bold drinkers are so few and far-between compared to the rest of our customers that brewing up bold all day, for the most part, is simply not worth it.

[JavaJunk]

All I think of is...
The arabica species of coffee that starbucks chose to use is worth the money to it's customers because it keeps the botanists, farmers and communites who take care of these delicate evergreen shrubs going. These shrubs can only grow Between 28 degrees north and 30 degrees south and this species grows a lot slower because it survives in higher elevation. Which means it only yields 1 - 1.5lbs per tree per yr. So with that in mind, it might be nice to think about the roots of all of of true caffine love and just be grateful this shrub isn't extinct and better yet celebrate it by having a cup of pike instead of sneering at the poundage starbucks doesn't grind and brew all day going thru one tree every 2 hours because you want just one cup and yes while i think you are entitled to your cup of bold it isn't really going to kill you. I personally feel humbled to know outside of the corporate money making world, their is a plant working it's wonders all yr to make me my one pound of coffee.

[StLouieDrip]

Enlightened Coffee Sage, I'm very sorry for all your frustrations. I'm sure it's difficult (impossible?) working for this company. FWIW I do wish it were better for all of you who obviously work so hard and care so much. But your mention of the urn tally reminds me of a time when I saw 8 urns at Panera's; four stale ones were being swapped out with four fresh ones.

OTOH you guys needn't worry about me coming in to pester and inconvenience you regarding bold. Prior to PPR I was a 20-30 times per month customer, but have only visited once in the last 3 months. I've now been brewing more at home, and just cracked open another lovely pound of French Roast, from the local indy. If pour-over gets to my city I might give it my consideration, but I remain skeptical of it being the solution at sbux.

JavaJunk, you might want to try your lecturing spiel on Howard Schultz regarding the value and celebration of PPR, because I seriously doubt he ever drinks the stuff himself.

It's just odd to have it explained why a bold coffee customer is such an unwelcome chore when this company was originally created especially for, and by, bold coffee customers.

[Shrug.]

And now it all comes down to how much happier customers were when we brewed an urn of coffee every hour instead of 8 minutes. And during that hour you almost never had to wait.

[Melody]

It's just odd to have it explained why a bold coffee customer is such an unwelcome chore when this company was originally created especially for, and by, bold coffee customers.

@StLouieDrip - Just want to say I agree with that sentiment, and it is the fundamental problem. The curse of the breakfast sandwich and the Frappuccino: Coffee gets forgotten. I seriously doubt that Pike Place Roast is Howard's 'go to' coffee.

So kind of on the topic of beverages that are bad for you:

Is there any truth to the rumor that the "trenta" test (the 32 ounce size cold beverage cup size) has just ended?

[javagirl666]

Why are you still offering decaf frap??

[Shrug]

Because if ONE person wants it then you must make an entire pitcher every day for the rest of your stores existance.

[JavaJunk]

Stlouiedrip.. I say bring it Howard. :)

[Enlightened Coffee Sage]

Nah, it's not as extreme as Shrug says; we're the only store in town that carries it, even though I'm sure there's the occasional customer that requests it elsewhere.

We figure that we have enough demand for it at our store that making it is typically worth it. We don't make a lot of decaf frappuccinos, but we do make some, and the base does seem to get used up. When our new manager takes over I'll probably suggest that we review this policy and see how much we're actually using.

Of course, if we start doing the whole "customizable frappuccino" thing in the summer, the whole issue may become moot.

[huh]

shrug-and urn and a basket are two different things. no one needs to rinse an urn every brew cycle, just the brew basket LOL hello!