It no doubt came as a big surprise to those attending the Starbucks’ managers conference in New Orleans yesterday when U2 front-man Bono walked out on the stage. According to media reports Bono joked:
“I was going to jump out of a cranberry scone, but maybe not.”
Bono went on to say that his appearance was even kept secret from the rest of his U2 band members. The cause for all of this hoopla was Starbucks’ decision to partner with (RED), a private organization that benefits AIDS programs in Africa.
(RED) was founded in 2006 by Bono and Bobby Shriver to benefit the Global Fund. The Global Fund, created in 2002, provides money to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. With approximately 4100 people dying daily in Africa from these diseases, the addition of Starbucks to the list of companies partnered with (RED) will result in lives being saved.
Starting November 27th through January 2nd, Starbucks will donate 5 cents to the Global Fund for each holiday beverage it sells. Following the holiday season Starbucks will designate certain products as (RED) of which similar donation be given from their sales.
Bono was quoted as saying:
“Here we are, talking about the economy tanking. People are saying, ‘Maybe the world doesn’t need more coffee houses.’ And what do you do? What does Starbucks do? You decide to give your money away. This is not charity. This is commerce.”
According to Starbucks, if every Starbucks customer bought one (RED) Holiday Exclusive (beverage) for a week 15,000 lives could be saved in Africa.
The question I raise, is this:
Drink Cost (Estimated $4 per Drink) x 7 = $28.00
Money Donated by Starbucks to (RED) = $.05 x 7 = $0.35If $0.35 x All Starbucks Customers = 15 thousand lives saved
Then $28 x All Starbucks Customers = 1,200,000 million lives saved
I ask you, why not skip spending that money at Starbucks and just giving it all directly to (RED)? This kind of charity is sugar coated goodness, it doesn’t require one ounce of sacrifice, and when you consider that you are drinking an overpriced cup of coffee, its really quit sad.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the (RED) project should be commended for trying to help in whatever way it can, its the rest of humanities blind eye and dedication to self that I have a problem with, mainly because this kind of thing makes me realize how little I am doing. But then again, maybe that is a good thing.
It’s been a few years since I have update the look and feel of Brotherhood of the Bean and after seeing the “Amazing Grace” theme that you see here today, I felt the update was long over due.
You may also notice a few more advertising ads sprinkles in for your viewing pleasure. I especially like the amazon scroll banner on the far right. I’ve populated it with a ton of coffee related items that get my excited, if you see something you like, click it, buy it and this site will get a small monetary donation from the fine people at Amazon.
Lastly, I’ve added my Amazon wish list at the request of several readers who were interested in other ways that they could give to this site other than strictly through monetary donation. So, for those people — feel free to peruse the wish list, let me thank you in advance for your generosity.
Okay, enough site news, back to Coffee!!
You might recall all the hubbub and gashing of teeth from the hordes of iPhone users when Starbucks nixed the planned free wifi. It looked then like the iPhone contingent would never be able to look elite surfing their lattes and looking cool on their iPhone.
The villain in the situation isn’t even the company that caused the access to be removed (T-Mobile). The villain is Starbucks who failed to honor the exclusive contract that they had with T-Mobile. Contracts! We don’t need no stinkin’ contracts.
The kicker is that the access is only available at U.S. Company owned Starbucks. That equates to roughly 40% of all the Starbucks in existence. Not the greatest odds, but better than before for sure. So, what would this news mean for me?
Well nothing since I don’t have an iPhone, but in the interest of coffee I popped over to the Starbucks Wifi Locator Service and pulled up the store locations for my zip code that have wifi. Bear in mind, that there are three Starbucks within 2000 yards of each other outside of my subdivision.
The results — “No Stores Found”. Ah well.
Our corporate friends Starbucks announced today that it will be doubling the amount of fair trade certified coffee that it purchases in 2009 from 20 million pounds to 40 million pounds.
Even the staunchest of independent coffee house supporters cannot argue that this is nothing but a good thing. Starbucks is already the biggest importer of fair trade coffee which a lot of people don’t know.
According to Business Week, Starbucks’ move is:
… part of the company’s “Shared Planet” initiative to do business “responsibly,” the company has said, by focusing on areas such as volunteerism and going greener, including using recyclable cups and reducing water usage.
Starbucks will be working with two fair trade certification organizations (TransFair USA and the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International) in an effort to further the advancement of agricultural/environmental practices.
Investors reacted favourably to this announcement and Starbucks shares rose 6 cents to $9.65
Tags: fair trade, starbucks
As readers of the Bean have seen from previous posting, the country of Sweden has done a lot of coffee research over the years. Up until now, the focus has been internally focused health benefits — that all changed recently, it seems coffee has another effect on women — Breast reduction.
According to the researchers at Lund University they found that drinking as little as three cups of coffee a day can have an impact on breast size. The more coffee women drink, the bigger the effect on their breast size.
While this news will no doubt strike put many men and women into a panic, Lund University does believe that regular coffee intake can reduce the risk of breast cancer.
Fox News quoted Helena Jernstroem who said:
“Drinking coffee can have a major effect on breast size,” said Helena Jernstroem, a lecturer in experimental oncology at Lund University. “Coffee-drinking women do not have to worry their breasts will shrink to nothing overnight. They will get smaller, but the breasts aren’t just going to disappear.”
Tags: breast size, cancer, sweden
Tired of wondering where else you can go for caffeine other than Starbucks or Caribou? Give the “Delocator” service a try.
Simply go the website, type in your zip and it gives you a list of independent coffee shops in your area. And if you know of one not listed, you can add it. There’s also a link for use with your cell phone!
Pretty cool little site. I used it and found a number of places I had no idea existed. For those die hard Starbucks fans (why are you reading this anyway?) they also list local Starbucks.
Tags: coffee finder, delocator, service
Back in 2006 Brotherhood of the Bean did a review of the Tassimo pod coffee system. It held the special distinction of being the lowest rated item to ever be reviewed earning a 2/5 rating, and if I recall, was really more like 1.5 out of 5.0. You can understand my hesitation to go anywhere near Tassimo again.
Tassimo was on the brink of announcing something big, something no other pod coffee system could claim to have — Starbucks Coffee pods. And since it had been a few years, I thought they might have improved the system since my last time seeing it here in the Brotherhood of the Bean test center.
And I have to admit, I was rather interested in seeing what the Starbucks pods from Tassimo would taste like in the Tassimo. With Green Mountain Coffee buying Keurig, it seemed about par for course that Starbucks would get into the pod coffee game, its surprising in fact that they didn’t venture into the pod system market already. Too much time spent putting independent coffee houses out of business I guess. But I digress…
The box that arrived from Tassimo was huge – “Did they really make significant changes to what I remembered as being a generally small pod coffee system?” I wondered. Not so I would soon find out. What they had done was create some very eye catching, and big packaging for to showcase the Starbucks union.
The intended effect was obviously to help you envision the Tassimo in your kitchen. It was a nice touch that they included what is a very heavy duty Starbucks coffee cup. Surprisingly enough, I found myself scratching my head at their choice of coffee cup to include.
The Tassimo was and still is designed primarily for the stock run of the mill coffee cup. The included Starbucks cup is larger than what can fit in the default space provided by the Tassimo. To use the cup, one must remove the cup holder as if it was a tall cup. While not a big deal, I just found it slightly ironic that the cup included didn’t fit the stock configuration.
Big deal you are thinking, just take the stock holder out and put it in big cup mode. Right on I would say, except for the fact that the pedestal that is used for normal sized coffee also serves as a reservoir for the system to drain its cleaning water into.
Take out the pedestal, and there is no place for the water to go. The unit is obviously designed to brew a large cup, and then immediately put the pedestal back for the cleaning cycle water to clear. In my opinion I think Tassimo would have been better served either making the cleaning process a manual event that is initiated with a control panel, or something that is triggered after the use of a dairy creamer pod.
After making 4-6 cups of coffee, the pedestal was filled with this much water drainage.
Its certainly not a deal killer by any means, and I commend Tassimo for striving to keep a clean system, but for myself, and understand that I realize this is entirely user specific, most of my cups that I use would require that I remove the pedestal.
With Tassimo’s built in bar code scanner I would think this might be a possibility for future versions to include. Use a Tassimo dairy creamer pod, automatically have the system clean itself.
Speaking of the bar code scanner Tassimo makes good use of it to let the system know exactly how the coffee, tea, etc. should be made. The downside is of course, that Tassimo controls exactly how much coffee should be brewed. Thankfully there is a manual mode.
Size does matter, the smaller your coffee maker is, the less room it has to hold water, the less room it has for heating elements, etc. This equates to two things:
- More Frequent Reservoir Refills
- Longer Wait Times Between Cups of Coffee
As such the Tassimo does require more frequent filling and does take longer in between cups of coffee than any of the other pod coffee systems we have reviewed to date. In a multi-coffee drinking household this could become irritating over time.
One of the things that I liked about the Tassimo was the clear view into the viewing chamber at the top. Unlike most pod coffee systems, the Tassimo pods are put in upside down so that the bar code reader can read in the appropriate information.
Functionally it serves as a way to watch and see when the pod has fully drained. I didn’t find that to be particularly critical to the brew process, but it is interesting to watch.
So, how was the Starbucks?
That’s really what you are after, you can admit it, its alright. The offering of Starbucks pods will no doubt boost Tassimo’s sales immensely. Untold legions of Starbucks drinkers with little time to brew a full pot of their blessed brew will be happy to hear that the Tassimo Starbucks pods deliver, single serve Starbucks is here for the masses.
Brew a cup and it smells like Starbucks, my wife — an admitted Starbucks fan – swooned. It was rather disturbing to be honest. I was reminded of countless cups of over roasted coffee consumed in Starbucks with my wife (strictly my opinion).
The key is the user of a larger pod for Starbucks than Tassimo uses for some of its other coffee pod selection. Tassimo appears to be using a pod that is similar in size to that used for their non-dairy toppings (for cappuccino, etc.).
The use of the larger pod affords the Starbucks coffee pods additional volume that directly translates to a fuller, stronger coffee. In the limited size, and fast brewing world of pod coffee systems, more coffee is never a bad idea.
Ultimately, the coffee a system brews should play a large part in the decision making process. Pod systems are a bit of an enigma when it comes to what they can do, because the choice of pods they offer are much more restrictive than using a traditional coffee pot.
Despite its drawbacks, Tassimo is the pod system that offers Starbucks. If you are a die-hard Starbucks fan, this pod system is for you — because its the only pod system that can give you Starbucks (aside from using say the Keurig K-Cup, which is a manual process).
I’d like to thank the fine people at Tassimo for giving Brotherhood of the Bean the opportunity to have a second look at the Tassimo and sample their new Starbucks coffee pods.
One of the things I love about being in the 9rules Network is the community of bloggers it encompasses. While reading the Bright Meadow blog today I stumbled across a flickr picture she ran across.
Lokesh Dhakar’s guide to coffee is easy to understand and something I think most people would welcome seeing in their favorite coffee house.
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