Original Starbucks near Pike Place Market. October 2011
coffee ground zero
I grew up in a family that did not drink coffee. Mom was a tea drinker (a huge tea drinker in fact) and I learned to like that drink. When I got to Japan, liking tea was handy and it was easy to make the shift to green tea. I even took it a step further and learned to drink English tea ( 紅茶 Kōcha) "black" (no milk, no sugar) to "taste the tea" upon encouragement from Japanese friends. I hated it at first, but eventually grew to like it and now I sincerely love my tea "black". Japan (seemingly always ahead of the curve) was just starting to develop a coffee culture in the mid 1980s. I could not stomach the stuff. Occasionally I would suffer through a cup with milk and sugar, but overall just - blurrrghhhh.
I returned from Japan to Washington, DC and had a Japanese friend there who insisted I learn to like coffee. Well, the guy won me over. I drank coffee at his place (light and sweet) until I liked it. After a while, I actually started to like the taste and, suddenly, I had become addicted to coffee. Later on, in the New York years I switched to artificial sweeteners and then finally just milk. I still am not a huge fan of black coffee (especially Americano), but a well-made espresso - usually only found in Italy - can be an excellent after dinner drink.
By 2011, I was a confirmed coffee drinker and "coffee snob". I had to have Starbucks coffee (it was still the only show in town most places). When I realized that the original Starbucks was down by Pike Place Market on one of our visits to Seattle, I just HAD TO visit. I was shocked at the interior. It reminded me more of Porto Rico (my favorite old school coffee shop on Bleecker St in Manhattan). That was a place for buying coffee beans, not sitting and drinking coffee while surfing the internet. Starbucks by 2011 already had rolled out its "model" and every single one was a variation on the same theme - like McDonalds. The original, however, was a TRUE coffee shop. I went inside, ordered a latte to go and asked "this really is the original?" to which I got a bored "yes" from the barista who had been asked that question 100 times already that day.
Now that my coffee snobbery has escalated, I rarely go to Starbucks except out of WiFi hotspot desperation. As coffee connoisseur friend DV often points out, "who wants to drink that burnt shit?" Truer words were never spoken - Starbucks tends to over-roast and their drinks are bitter. My first trip to Milan confirmed that for me.
I had made my little "Coffee Hajj" - original Starbucks, check. It's too bad they don't use their first shop as the model for the franchise. The original concept is so much better than the "post-modern espresso drink spot" it has morphed into today.
Comments