dawgcatching wrote:Is the commercial espresso business actually decreasing in quality, or is it just diverging? ...

Diverging; and not to the benefit of chains like like Starbies. Once you get every DQ, DD, McD, and even Speedways now, serving caramel lattes and other milk concoctions; and once the remaining independents pick up their standards; the writing is on the wall for the chains just as it was for companies like Sears and Woolworths when the old "dry-goods" category started to ultra-specialize into the scene we have today. The pizza analogy of bad chains and a few good places holds for now, since convenience stores can't bake fresh pizzas. But given further improvements in super-autos (which are certain), any convenience store will be able to serve competently prepared espresso drinks as easily as they serve competently prepared slushies now. Then the only reason for a cafe will be that the coffee is fresher and better and the staff know a lot about it.

I used to think the "running patter" part of barista competitions was a little strange. But my guess is that as the super-autos get better; the focus of pro baristas will shift away from pure technical competence and more towards providing selection and customization, and more importantly communicating with the customers about the coffees. This is happening throughout the food field; as the chains become more competent technically, high end restaurants focus more on describing the food well, offering original, interesting and sometimes outre choices, etc.

It would be nice if the hangout cafe makes a comeback; but probably, in a few years, people will have their broadband connections surgically implanted, and being at a certain place to meetup will become obsolete. Was it only a few years ago when people talking into thin air were nuts?

GreatDane wrote:
I am shocked that the large commercial espresso places like Peets and Caribou have moved to super-automatics.

Malachi wrote:
To be blunt - I'm not. At all.
Peets, once upon a time in a land far far away, used to produce decent coffee. That is no longer the case.
And Caribou is, perhaps, inferior to Starbucks (IMHO).

In both cases, these are not quality focused businesses. They are margin focused businesses that are trying to compete with Starbucks. This puts them in the position of having to become a high-volume, low-margin business. In essence, they are now fast food. Given this, going to Super-Automatics was a foregone conclusion. It allows them to decrease labor costs, decrease training costs and decrease waste. Given that labor is such a huge part of their cost structure and given that, with such low margins, controlling percentage points on things like waste is critical to success... I think you could say it's in their shareholders' best interests to go to Super-Autos. In addition, with a high-volume low margin business you need to focus on that volume side. Super autos allow you to serve higher volume with lower labor costs than the alternatives.

None of these companies are "espresso" places. Some of them are true fast food. Some serve milk shakes. But most are in the business of selling a legal drug wrapped in effective brand and experience marketing. Implying that, because these companies are not quality focused, no commercial coffee companies are quality focused would be like saying because Outback Steakhouse serves terrible steak it's clearly impossible to get a good steak in the US.

I stumbled across two articles that may be of interest or may be common knowledge to the more experienced espresso aficionados but either way they were interesting to me.
The first is a link to an article called "Starbucks Economics" which talks about the margin side of the business while sacrificing quality.

http://www.slate.com/id/2133754/?nav=mpp

The second is a link to a gentleman who started up his own coffee business which heads down the same path about quality/margin.

http://www.slate.com/id/2132576/

Forgive me if the links don't work, I haven't posted any here before. If they don't, the ordinal article is on http://www.slate.com in the lower right hand corner (at least for today). The second link is within the Starbucks link under related articles at the bottom. It's a little difficult to find so look carefully!


As far as the state of coffee/espresso quality in the U.S. I'm optimistic. From my perspective there is a macro trend towards quality over quantity in food and drink (and even life in general). I'm as passionate about the food I eat and the wine/beer I drink as I am about espresso. I will take my 3 year old daughter with me on Saturday to a quality butcher, an organic food store and a specialty wine store and if that weren't enough I have to stop by a bakery to make sure she is happy. I'm not satisfied with going to the supermarket and buying meat with a diaper or breads made god only knows when or by who. I pass by 100's of fast food chains only to keep driving. The American food/wine/beer/spirits/coffee industry caters to the lowest common denominator and it always will because that's where the money is. What I've experienced is when I do go to my local mega mart they all of the sudden start carrying more organic items, my local mega liquor store now has specialty wines and beers. This was not the case where I live 5-10 years ago. Things are slowly getting better, you can find small finely crafted artisanal cheese, bread, etc in a lot of places you couldn't find them before. As far as coffee goes most people I know get a cup of joe at the gas station or dunkin donuts on their way to work and think I'm crazy for my investment in a prosumer machine. But once they taste it and start to understand what coffee can be they think I'm a little less crazy...still crazy though. I believe things will slowly change and sites like this and coffee houses like Chris mentioned have an impact. There are certainly as many people out there with negative feelings about Starbucks as positive. The one good thing is they have an opinion and hopefully will seek out a better product (eventually). I'm far from an optimistic person in life but at the end of the day I can find good food/wine and espresso. It may take more work than buying the crap most stores sell, but when in life has something worthwhile been easy and a good shot of espresso is only a microcosm for that

Michael