the noshery

If you are not familiar with the logo above, it is the logo of what some people are calling the best single serve coffee maker in the world. The Clover machine has generated a lot of attention over the past couple of months. The machine, from what I understand works generally like a french press. The difference is that the french press relies almost 100% on the person making the coffee to be precise and consistent while the clover takes care of that for you. It is a well worked, precise piece of coffee machinery. Still, the barista is required to grind and dose the coffee before turning it over to the clover, so it is not infallible.

That all being said, Starbucks (the corporate giant sucking every ounce of Romanticism out of coffee) has just purchased the same machine that a lot of independent coffee shops have recently purchased in an effort to distance themselves from the big bad mermaid. Starbucks also has said that they don't plan on continuing the sale of the machine to shops outside of the Starbucks corporation. So, now the independent shops that dropped the 11 grand ...ya that is right $11,000.00 dollars to separate themselves from Starbucks now have to pay Starbucks when service time on their machine comes around.

I understand that coffee in the United States probably wouldn't be where it is at right now if it where not for Starbucks. I also understand the Starbucks is a business and that buying Clover was probably the best move they could have made to keep making absurd amounts of money. The issue I have is that, in Starbucks' quest for more money and more efficiency, the quality of their product has suffered...big time. Try going into a Starbucks and just say "can I please have a macchiato". See what happens, the little 17 year old girl behind the push button espresso machine will ask you what size and if you want caramel on top. They have a lot of people fooled into believing that this is good coffee. This is not good coffee!! Not to mention the fact they are purposefully putting the shops that do make good coffee out of business in the meantime. Bringing me back around to my original point of the post. Because Starbucks has been suffering as of late, instead of fixing the root of problem...making bad coffee, they decided to go out and take away other peoples opportunity to increase their efficiency of making good coffee and increase profit.

They are the Wal-Mart of the coffee world.