One of the factors that has weighed on Starbucks and thus its share price etc., Is this perception that Starbucks coffee is exorbitantly expensive...as the author says it: "twice as much for a cup as the coffee house across the street".

First of all that's either a lie or a poorly informed opinion. My Dad just the other day said basically the same thing, and he's wrong also. Any one of Starbucks lovely, crafted coffees- and there are SO many to choose from are $1.60 per cup and .50 cents for a refill! Yep, that's it. Not the "$3" mentioned by the author- who's either making it up or simply exaggerating to make his point.

When I told my Dad that Frappacinos and Lattes especially Venti (very large) are what folks are mistakenly characterizing as 'Starbucks overpriced coffee'- and then I told him the price he was floored. Of course at 77 years old he doesn't even really know what a Frapp is; but he does like a rich, dark cup of Joe which at Starbucks is $1.60.....50 cents for a refill.

Anyway, Dad says he gets his coffee at a place where there are no nice soft chairs, beautiful ambience, good music and the smell of coffee beans and pastries...nope; he goes to a place that sells all kinds of crap including cups of coffee. It's only a $1.00 for a cup there and it's 'pretty good'. He's had Starbucks he says and he offers; "that's really good coffee". So now he knows- for .60 more he can have a "really good" cup of coffee in a place that's really nicer than most places on earth...really...a place w/ great smells and soft music and nice people and chairs and art and couches and an ethos of "Yes".

Or he can save .60, hit the donut shop or 7-11 and enjoy absolutely nothing about the place and not even get as good a cup of Joe. Sure, he could but I don't think he will...as right now he's sitting here w/ me at my neighborhood Starbucks and as I type he's saying 'how nice this place is'.....

If you say "Starbucks coffee is better than any other coffee in town" then one thing is almost certain: You're in the United States of America.

There's nothing wrong with that of course, but the author of this article (named Anne, by the way, so I doubt called "he" very often ;) lives in Poland and was writing about Warsaw.

In most of Europe, in a big city, Starbucks is almost guaranteed to be the... well let's say weakest, coffee in town. That much is pretty safe to say.

If you're in most places in the US that's going to be the reverse, the Starbucks in a place with the only alternative being a donut shop has saved my life on occasion. The important exceptions are cities like San Francisco, New York, and so on, in the Italian sections, where you can find a really good Italian or French cafe, in which I bypass Starbucks every time and head straight to those.

On price: it's somewhat overpriced in Paris, say, but it's an import, a novelty, and so on, so that's sort of natural. The fact is however that you can get much better coffee next door and at about a thousand other places and the price will be less.

What an editorial. Sincity Scott must work for Starbucks or own a franchise. I hate Starbucks coffee. It's way too strong and the flavor sucks.There are many coffess much better and for less, with free refills. I do however, like the Mocha Frapppacino. Damn.

I do like starbucks, but it is far from some of the best coffee around. I live in the Seattle-Tacoma where coffee seems to be on every corner. And while starbucks does have a big market penetration here, there are many, many other coffee joints around here with much better coffee and for about the same price or cheaper. Starbucks markets an ambiance, a lifestyle, a status. Most other coffee shops market their coffee with a less pretentious atmosphere...Cutter's Point and Tully's are two coffee joints near my house that I find to be much better. That said, I won't hesitate to stop on by starbucks if it is near by. Their coffee is not bad.

Sin,

I do not much like SB coffee and I avoid the place. It's coffee is not "finely crafted", but rather a pale imitation of real espresso. It is, however, not bad and it--along with the SB ambiance--is pretty consistent across outlets. Like McD, it is a safe bet.

Nevertheless, I have lot's of time for SB. In the US, SB more or less single-handedly raised us up from the likes of Folgers and Maxwell House, brewed in the dread Bunn coffee machine, to something resembling actual coffee. SB truly transformed coffee drinking in the US, for the better.

In Southern Oregon the brew the younger members of my family prefer to spend their cash on is Dutch Brothers. Myself, I prefer to brew my own coffee, and not spend a mint on iffy drive-up or walk-in over-priced, over-flavored and messed with unknowns that could have been setting on a hot plate for 4 hours or 4 days. I do not like Starbuck's. I only drink it when travelling with others that will not stop anywhere else, sigh, like old Germans sold on Hitler, true Starbuck's fans will sample nothing else and say that the expense of $3.50 for a cup of swill is only great if it has a Starbuck's lable on it. I say, coffee is swill when it has "flavorings" in it, foam on top of it or has an oil slick or has set longer than 15 minutes in the pot. I do like iced coffee, but being a diebetic, I fix that myself too. An old friend of mine was hooked on Dunkin' Donuts coffee years ago, but I only bought it because then I could afford it and lunch. No I am not "a Scottsman", just an American fed up with people wasting their money and being given swill.

sharpatheart_

Once again neophyte, Starbucks serves hundreds of different beans from multiple geographic regions of the world...some are mild, some are medium, some are robust and some are intense. Comparing Starbucks to a donut shop or a convenience store or a greasy fast-food counter is 'apples to oranges'.

Just ask for mild if you're not acclimated to darker roasts-

I'm so tired of the ignorant commentary rampant on the web comparing a place w/ a couple choices ONLY of mystery blend to Starbucks, or any REAL coffee-house for that matter.

Peets, Seattles Best, 'Bucks are for connoisseurs- the others merely have a couple coffee choices- AND BTW, ask any barrista to recreate for you the mild, piss you Americans call donut shop coffee or McD's and they can easily do so.

That's the difference of knowing roasts, blends and geography and brewing a select cup to match one's taste's and your favourite places that can do nothing even remotely artisan.