Thirsty Thursday: Starbucks Blonde Roast

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It seems like a lot of people have beef with Starbucks, yeah? Independent business people get down on Starbucks for pushing out mom-and-pop coffee shops and gentrifying neighborhoods, while capitalists get down on the old boy for offering their waged employees reasonable healthcare. But nobody gets down on Starbucks the way coffee snobs do. “Starbucks!” the coffee snobs poo-poo, sticking their finely-tuned noses in the air. “Why would you drink drip coffee that’s always burned?”

"Excuse me while I espouse on the latest Jonathan Franzen."

And you know, up until now, the coffee snobs had a point. See, it turns out when you don’t put milk or sugar in your coffee (thanks for raising me right, Grandma), you care about the taste of the roast. And I’m not the kind of girl who appreciates a medium roast that tastes like a dark roast because it’s badly brewed.

Ok, ok, maybe I’m a bit of a coffee snob, too. I’m perfectly content to eat a Filet-o-Fish, but put a bad drip coffee in front of me, and I’m as monocle-holding as the next Stumptowner. In the Midwest, all it took was a trip to Caribou, where a girl could choose from three different roasts in the morning, but at Starbucks, it’s usually Pike Place or bust, and I’ve lost count of the times my Pike Place has had a fine layer of grounds on the bottom. (And I’mma apologize for the lack of pictures in this post in advance, because coffee is Serious Business.)

So when my coworker told me Starbucks had introduced a new roast, the blonde roast, on Tuesday, a lighter roast than their normal drip, I was hesitant. I’ve always imagined Starbucks’ biggest problem was their brewing method, not their roast, so what difference would a new bean in the grinder make?

But lately my coworkers and I have been on a quest for the perfect coffee in Midtown — a quest filled with the perils of long walks to Milk Bar, hot coffee dribbled down hands, and the folly of flavor shots. “Could it really be that our saving grace was under the green mermaid’s guidance all along?” we thought, with wonder in our journey-weary hearts.

I gotta say, foodies — I walked in skeptical. My coffee had been burned by Starbucks so many times before. I ordered a small, and behind the counter, I nearly watched an employee fill it with Pike Place — only to have the cashier correct him at the last moment, and fill me up right.

The verdict?

I … I kind of liked it.

Its first impression is a strong, but not overwhelming, bitterness at the front of the palate, which quickly rounds out through the mouth into a full-bodied flavor. It’s not the offensive bitterness of accidental scorching, but the bitterness of a true coffee bean, unsullied by “dark roasting” or whatever you’d call it. Granted, it’s not a particularly complex flavor, but it’s miles better than Starbucks’ typical roast.

I’d give it a 7/10, though that might be slightly high, since I’m judging it in comparison to their original roast, which was virtually undrinkable. For the first time, though, I’m not mildly pissed that this huge corporate chain took a Moby-Dick character’s good name to schill crappy, expensive coffee. It’s not bad! But don’t take a foodies’ word for it. At select location, Starbucks is offering free samples through Sunday.

(POST-SCRIPT: “But Mary!” you cry. “Coffee is hardly fast food relevant!” Well, first I’d have to disagree on that, at least in Starbucks’ case, because not only do they have grab-and-go food, they’re heavily franchised — but second, apparently Starbucks is on this blonde roast game to try and “seduce McDonalds customers” since fast food brews tend to be a lighter roast than Starbucks. Why Starbucks  focus groups overlooked the fact that people probably buy McDonald’s coffee because a small is at least 50 cents cheaper, the world may never know.)

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Thirsty Thursday Midwestern Special: Caribou CoffeeDunkin Donuts Iced CoffeeThe Season of Pumpkin Spice

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