Marco.org

Looking past this “news” piece’s blatant promotionalism*, Starbucks seems to have stumbled upon knowledge that’s only news to them, and they’re celebrating by announcing a nationwide program of mediocrity at an overhyped PR event today.

People don’t like variety. They want the same mediocre, universally agreeable, unchallenging*, least-common-denominator coffee blend every day. So Starbucks is giving them what they want by having one mediocre blend that they can serve ever day.

* Firefox says these aren’t real words, but I don’t care. You know what I mean.

This isn’t a surprise to me at all. Most people don’t like coffee. They like the idea of coffee, or they like caffeine, but they don’t like the flavor. That’s why most coffee sold is very weak. What people really like is dairy and sugar. You can add dairy and sugar to anything and people will like it.

Starbucks has also learned that roasting and grinding coffee months in advance and shipping it to stores in “flavor-locked bags” doesn’t produce fresh coffee. But we knew that already.

Just keep boosting local coffeeshop sales, Starbucks…