> Curious then why Starbucks doesn’t adjust.

Poor quality beans and robusta are ‘hidden’ with a dark roast as the flavour moves to bitter. This also lasts a long time and doesn’t go stale for ages. As a general rule in coffee, light roasts have a variety of tastes and dark ones are just bitter. This saves a lot of money. Low quality arabica beans are less than half the price of good ones, and that’s for me, purchasing a few kg at a time. Starbucks will be using a lot of low grade robusta and that stuff cheaper again. Combine this with a brand which makes coffee where the dominant flavour isn’t the coffee but the milk (if you can call miscellaneous juiced nuts etc that) which is often flavoured. I don’t think the coffee will be their primary cost in consumables, I’m guessing milk is. If you want to have a play, get a heat gun and a kilo of beans. Have a play about with different roast styles. It’s a slippery slope but it isn’t an expensive one.

Edit: Here is a link with a breakdown of Starbucks costs. Not sure how accurate it is, but it puts the coffee as 16c per cup, and the milk at the same. The cup itself is about 32c according to the article. http://coffeemakersusa.com/pricing-breakdown-cup-coffee/

I find these Starbucks complaints interesting. They always have the character of a warning about a hidden conspiracy. Kind of a "wake up, sheeple!" vibe.

Like, once a Starbucks drinker goes out and buys a heatgun to roast their own beans they will discover the truth that has been hidden from them all along.

I always just assume that someone who drinks Starbucks regularly would be the most aquainted with how it tastes and might not need someone to tell them.

It's like what happens when whisky fans discover single malts and start dissing Johnny Walker.

Making a consistent product year over year with inconsistent raw materials, in high volume with wide distribution, and maintaining prices most people can afford is very difficult.

Sure you can get better coffee if you spend time doing research and sourcing beans and roasting equipment, but that doesn't mean there is no place for Starbucks in the world.

I was staying in a city in Germany's north west lately. There's a large old market place with plenty of cafés. All very busy except one: Starbucks. When you've been used to the kind of coffee that was brought in by Italian guest workers, Starbucks is a pretty mediocre experience.

On the other hand, Starbucks keeps spreading to smaller cities. So they seem popular with someone at least.

I’d always assumed people were after good coffee when they wanted a coffee. Thinking about it, this is probably wrong and there are people that actually set off looking for a Starbucks.

By and large, Starbucks drinkers are looking to drink sugar and cream with caffeine. The bitterness of cheap, overroasted beans enables excessive sweetness without being cloying.

The people complaining here aren't the average Starbucks customer.

Coffee is probably like wine to most people: critics who say it's bad always seem to be exaggerating, it's hard for the layman to actually tell if it's objectively good or bad, and in the end you're drinking it for an effect or company anyways.

For example, burned coffee is more of a caricature of its normal taste unlike, say, burned popcorn which tastes like charcoal. You could probably tell most people including me that some burned coffee is some local artisanal roast and I'd chalk up any changes in its flavor to that and move on.

People clearly just aren't making coffee purchases based on taste, so you have to liken the whole thing to people going to bars. At which point Starbucks is simply the well-known bar in town with no surprises. You know their hours, you know where it is, you know you can get a table and dominate it shamelessly for hours, and so do all the other people in your group.

Sure, you'd like to try one of those lil cafes around the block sometime, but it's something you procrastinate just like anything else that will introduce the slightest change in your life.

One popular theory among people who don't like Starbucks coffee is that a dark roast tends to make variations in or quality of the coffee beans less important than in the case of a lighter roast.

That said, Starbucks is obviously popular with a lot of people. Personally, I think their coffee and some of their other drinks are fine. I don't always go there (not that I'm a coffeeshop regular) but that's for reasons other than their coffee quality. (I admittedly tend to use darker roasts when I make coffee at home as well.)