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Originally Posted by BarTopDancer
And I think that where you work is the coffee and tea that you begin to prefer. You prefer the methods that they use because you learn what they tell you. Starbucks will tell you why their coffee is better and their methods are better than Peets. Peets will do the same for Starbucks. I think I make damn good coffee and that Starbucks and Peets taste about the same. I'll drink either and won't sit there and make a fuss about how much xyz sucks. But in the end I prefer where I worked (which is a coffee cart) and private coffee houses (gypsy, coffee que, Natales) over corporate stores.
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Yes and no on the coffee preferences. I can see that it's because of where I worked, but a lot of the coffee stuff breaks down into coffee knowledge on the part of the customers and the employees. If you read, I also said that a lot of Peet's employees don't get it right, either. For me, there are temperature differences that account for good flavor and bad - plus, it's a little disturbing to walk into a Starbucks only to see a bunch of milk being made without a barista attending it, only to have them set it on top of the machine for anything over a minute or two. I've seen it time and time again, and that's just not high-quality. It's gross.
Even the employees at the Starbucks I used to love to go to wouldn't know the difference between their coffees. If someone asks what a coffee tastes like (say, Kenyan, for example) chances are, they don't want some made up answer. I'd love to challenge someone from Starbucks on why their coffee's better... though it's been over 8 months since I've worked at Peet's I've probably retained more knowledge than most ever learned about coffees and teas and can tell the differences in regions, countries. Coffee is a sensory experience - even coffee flavored coffee... which isn't what Starbucks excels at.
As for the real differences between Peet's and Starbucks coffee, its mainly in their roasting technique. Peet's is
all hand-roasted deep. Starbucks carries a wide variety of flavors and roasts, and most of them are pretty good (if the batch wasn't burned in the machine, as I've had before). It's all in how it's prepared.