And How Do You Like Your Starbucks Now, My Pretty?

It cannot be easy, being green, shade-grown and responsible. It cannot be easy, being the butt of endless Dunkin Donuts commercials. It cannot be easy, watching McDonalds roll out espresso machines. It cannot be easy, being Starbucks.

Evangelist-in-chief Howard Schultz roundly denies that Starbucks is losing its way. "Our best days are ahead of us," he says. To prove it, an extravagant product launch of a new blend, Pike Place (named for the company's first location). "We've reinvented brewed coffee," he says, and calls it "the best we've ever done."

Oh, there's plenty to do, plenty to do. There's a new site, MyStarbucksIdea.com, designed to solicit public input, and well-meaning suggestions keep coming in. And over on StarbucksGossip.com, the buzz is about (successful) lawsuits filed by employees to prevent managers from sharing in tips.

Dunkin Donuts proclaims you can order their lattes in English, not "Fritalian" (ignoring that latte doesn't actually mean coffee at all, but milk). Mickey D calls its espresso stations "McCafe." But just as the competition turns toward espresso, Starbucks is turning its attention back to drip.

When Gordon Bowker and his roommates created Starbucks 37 years ago, it was largely a reaction to the insipid coffees of the day (canned Maxwell House and MJB). Their richly aromatic "Full City" roast was revolutionary, and to this day it is still being Swift-Boated by counter-revolutionaries as "burned."

Still, Starbucks rounded up 1,000 customers and listened to 1,500 hours of comments to provide input into "what's important to them" in a cup of coffee, says Andrew Linnemann, Starbucks master coffee blender. The result is, to be honest, quite remarkable: smooth, low-acid yet full-flavored. It's going to be a huge hit.

So if this be the face of the new Starbucks, the question is: What took you so goddamn long?

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