Starbucks

So I went to a Starbucks for the second time ever in Paris and while I love their coffees..

Vente?

What the fuck?

 

I have never been to starbucks

 

I usually get a grande; venti gets me too wired.

 

Venti is the way to be.

 

I always have a venti. I like my coffee. A lot.

 

Starbucks, McDonalds, Bugger King, the other one.. . I visit them all regularly, when I am in town and I get caught short. They are a useful alternative to public toilets, which you don't really see anymore, so what choice does one have.

I'd be more than happy to volunteer umbrage for my use of their facilities, but sadly Starbucks doesn't sell hashish and McDonalds doesn't sell anything remotely edible, so I just deposit the cosby's and leave promptly, hopefully before my clothes end up completely soaked from sweat. I think McDs make their toilets deliberately hot on purpose.

 

I've got a secret...Starbucks isn't really all that great. I still drink the shit though.

 

I went into there once... it was a very alarming experience for me. I wrote to complain.

For your amusement...

-----

Dear Sir, Madam or Creature

I was recently walking through the streets of Cambridge in search of a cup of tea when I came to experience what I have now come to call “My Trial By Starbucks.” I have decided to write to you that I may recount this tale of woe.

An easy task you would think to acquire a good cup of tea in the heartland of Middle Class England.
Surely, if there were one thing I could easily obtain in the second greatest tea-consuming country on earth, it would be a cup of tea.

Firstly however I couldn't find anywhere that wasn't Starbucks, Costa Coffee, Cafe Nero, The Republic of Coffee (formally the Kingdom of Malay) or any of the various other F*R*I*E*N*D*S style coffee shops that I prefer not to frequent on account of not being a corporate whore. All I wanted was a quiet cafe.

I failed in this task.

Eventually, I remembered that Borders Book Shop had a coffee shop upstairs so I went in there...

Only to discover that this too was now a Starbucks.
By now I was far to grumpy and tired to bother looking any further afield, so I went in.
So I wait in the que for fifteen, yes FIFTEEN minutes. What could possibly take the three people it took to operate the till so long to serve just five customers? Were they growing the coffee fresh on the premises?
Thankfully I was in no hurry so I waited and finally it was my turn.

"Just a cup of tea please" said I to the hired-brain at the till.

He looked at me as though I had just asked him to kick me in the bollocks
Apparently the source of confusion was that I had not specified what "sort" of tea I wanted.
It was evidently not clear, when I asked for a cup of tea, that I was talking about tea, obtained from the tea plant (Camellia Sinensis), the single most popular drink in the whole of the Kingdom and her territories, no apparently I could have meant anything from Starbuck's fine Albanian Stick Tea to their tasty Mauve-Tea. So after I cleared up this little misunderstanding he went to make my beverage... Or so I thought.
Apparently he first needed to know what size tea I wanted, a "cup" not being nearly specific enough, so I just asked for a normal sized one.

Never have I seen such panic and intellectual strife pass over the face of a starbucks employee, "no" he said, you have to choose either "Tall" "Fairly Tall" "Quite Tall" "Grande" "Lengthy" or "Wide"
I quietly pointed out to him that in fact all of those words were just different variations on the theme of "large" and what I wanted was a normal cup.

Dilemma: was I asking him to partake in the most advanced math and philosophy, by what standard did one define "normal"? Was he going to have to measure every single cup in the world, work out the median size, buy a kiln, fashion a new cup from clay out of those specifications and serve my tea in this?
Apparently he thought so, since instead of giving me a normal cup of tea he decided instead to go and fetch all of the different sized cups to show them to me.

I chose the normal one

This, he explained politely, was apparently a "tall" tea. So I patiently explained to him that actually the cup was really no taller than any of the other cups, that it certainly was not taller than he or I and that in fact this cup was not, by any comparison other than with espresso, tall in any way shape or form.

He did not take well to my flouting of the Starbucks Size System and went to busy himself about making my drink.

Finally, it was over... or was it?

He reappears. Now he wants to know whether I want "space for milk"?

What a stupid question, was he planning to fill my cup to the very brim, to prevent the addition of milk unless I specifically asked him not to? Surely THIS would be too full even without milk, it would spill.
So, rather baffled, I nod, of course he should leave space for milk.

Only afterwards would I discover that "space for milk" is secret starbucks code for: "only half a cup".

WHO IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLYWOULD DRINK A CUP OF HALF-MILK HALF-TEA???

But by now it was all too much, I just wanted to take my half-cup of tea and sit down. But not before he charged me £1.45 for it.

For just 30 more pence I could have gone to the supermarket, bought some PG Tipp’s, and had EIGHTY WHOLE CUPS OF TEA. But no, apparently a starbucks tea is worth £1.45 on account of all the extra hassle they give you in trying to get one.
For just 50p I told him, I could get a cup of tea from the market, since starbucks only give you factory grade tea-bag tea and not loose-leaf I couldn't really see how they were justified in charging this.
He politely informed me that in starbucks there are such wondrous luxuries as chairs, tables and women with screaming babies and I wouldn't have been able to get this "experience" in the market. Actually, I explained to him, there were lots of screaming babies in the market, and the floor outside was easily as clean as the tables here in Starbucks; but by now I had already parted with my money and he was more interested in ascertaining what “type” of water the poor girl behind me wanted, and whether she would like this water to be “Tall” or “Lofty”.

So I get my milk, take my half-cup of tea and turn to sit do- ... no. No I don't
Because the place is so crowded that there is nowhere to sit.
So I have to wait 10 minutes while my tea goes cold before a chair is available on a table that clearly hadn't been cleaned that week. I finally get one, and have to drink at breakneck speed because so many people are waiting for seats...

ALL THIS, for what? All I wanted was some dried leaves lightly infused in water and fifteen minutes quiet. AM I ASKING FOR SO MUCH?

It is too late for recompense. I wish you to send me the severed head of the Starbucks employee on a silver plate; I will not be requiring “space for milk” with this.



Sincerely

 

Fuck this Friends-esque coffee-culture that pervades our land, I just wanna cup of frigging tea also! And I DON'T want to pay artificially inflated Starbucks prices either. Just because it's 3-4 quid for a frappacino does not mean a cup of shite tea served in a cardboard cup should be £3.50!

Recently on a bus journey to Edinburgh we stopped at a motorway services. You all got 5 minutes, said the driver, enough time for a fag or a pish, or a cup of tea thought I! Lovely.

So I went into the shop and was faced with two enormous robotic machines serving coffee, that's right, two of the fuckers. And could I get a cup of tea? Nope. No tea, only coffee and hot chocolate.

All they need is a bloody kettle and a box of tea bags, but somehow that was too difficult to organise...

 

Oh don't get me started! how hard is it to serve a proper pot of tea made with loose-leaf tips instead of factory-floor-grade teabags?

If they have time to put a sprig of holly in a cup of coffee they should have time to spoon some tea into a teapot!

We should start a Campaign For Real Tea

Edit: Not to mention that in starbucks they put the milk in last.

There are some parts of England where they'll take you out and shoot you in the back field for doing that!

 

starbucks=badddd.it's just come to my small town and is always dirty and wayyy to overprised.I wayyy prefer unique little coffee shops with great buns and cakes.Especially in Paris!!

 

Och milk is supposed to go in last, how else does the tea infuse into the water. But if I take it milky I always leave the tea bag in for a minute as well.

Tea bag tea is alright too, but as for the shite you get in these expensive coffeeshops...

Still, can't be any worse than the pickwicks shite you get in Hollamd, although at least I am allowed to sit and smoke my pipe there, as opposed to sneaking round dirty alleyways full of used condoms and syringes.

 

lol that's why god gave us spoons
If you put it in last it scolds the milk and imparts a flavour similar to UHT milk. Scientists did tests to settle the matter after the milk-last-or-first issue brought the UK to the Brink of civil war.

 

You can't infuse the tea properly if the milk goes in first.

C'mon, you seriously can't argue with George Orwell and Tony Benn! These scientists have got it all wrong. What is important is that you make the tea strong enough for drinking it white, but for black you only infuse the tea for a short time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/jun/25/science.highereducation

See, what do these fucks know?

"The ideal receptacle is a ceramic mug."

The ideal receptable is a china cup, tea tastes best out of china! Stoopid head scientist fucks.

 

Ahh Mr Orwell's vile heresy has been laid to rest by exhaustive scientific testing! The milk only needs a stir in order to infuse with the tea, but scolded milk, EEEururgrgrhrhrhrhhrhrhrhrhr.


Don't make me challenge you to a duel for this vulgarity!

 

Bonsai, your letter was just fantastic.

 

starbucks is good (my drink of choice are the carmel frappicino soo good but sooo bad for you). but they run out of croissants wayy to fast. I used to work at a coffee shop and the milk is traditionally added last. first goes the espresso, coffe or chocolate syrup, then the sugar if needed, then the streamed milk heated to a nice 150-160 degrees. anything over 160 is cooked.

 

Pfft! Maybe that's how the barbarians in the colonies do it, but I live in civilisation.

Adding milk before the tea makes it taste better, because it stops the milk proteins degrading, and it makes the tea warmer, because tea with milk in is more stable.


You're all mad!

Coffee may be different. But all right-thinking people add milk before tea, just like it says in the bible*






*Facts may not be as true as they appear in window

 

When I make tea I make it in a pan so I add milk last and never bother taking the tea bag out.

 

Milk before tea definitely. The other way lies madness.