Technology

Their black coffee isn't great, but their espresso is good which is what makes it into the sugary drinks. I think the main draw is that it's pretty consistently decent, while with other chains like Dunkin or Wawa you're never quite sure what you're going to get but it's probably not going to be that good. I'll also add that the coffee they sell at grocery stores isn't bad (although it's far from my favorite). I think it's much worse at Starbucks itself because it inevitably ends up burnt pretty shortly after it's brewed.

As far as price, it costs $2 because that's the price that Starbucks determined maximizes profit. From what I've seen at other coffee shops though including Mom and Pop ones, that price point is pretty typical.

Their coffee tastes the way it does because of how they roast it, it's a purposeful style thing (that tastes terrible and is horribly overpriced imo).

Their roasts are also darker than they say. Everything they have is dark roast, with their 'blond' coming in closer to a medium.

People go nuts over the sugar, caffeine and perceived status, it has nothing to do with the taste of the coffee. As a fellow black coffee drinker, my recommendation is to avoid Starbucks unless you happen to be near a union store where the coffee is guaranteed to taste more like freedom, but still like ashes soaked in oil.

In case you want more details: The way coffee roasting works is you move beans around in a real hot container, and you try to keep them to a specific point on a temperature graph at each moment as they roast. A different roaster would roast them a bit slower, but Starbucks just blasts those beans with everything they have, then they don't stop until the beans are burnt. This gives them their "signature taste". This is largely because of Howard Shultz, the guy who drove the company to be a cafe, and until recently the CEO. That's his preferred coffee taste and that's what he demands the company makes.

Also, why does a small cup of black coffee cost $2+

CEO needs another yacht, my dude.

Dark Roasted coffee is the only way Starbucks can be Starbucks.

Lighter-roasted coffee emphasizes origin flavors and i agree with you --generally tastes better and is more interesting.

But you can't sell coffee like that in tens of thousands of coffee shops and have it remotely consistent.

Coffee growing from the same plot but on one side of a hill will taste different from the other side due to getting different quantities of sunlight. Complex origin flavors will always be the domain of small specialty coffee shops.

Starbucks has McDonalds-like consistency serving millions of customers a day and that's only because they emphasize the flavors they can get consistently--roast flavors.

TL;DR The bigger the chain, the darker you have to roast. That's just how coffee works.

From what I understand, part of Starbucks thing is catering to people who like burnt and bitter. Kind of like the emo crowd.

I drink espresso (like just shoot a double shot back) and their stuff leaves a terrible aftertaste.

Edit: If you like black coffee, go for a medium roast premium or specialty grade coffee from Costa Rica that goes through a honey process. Very smooth, low acid and a hint of natural sweetness from the coffee fruit.

Yeah, they over roast their coffee. It’s deliberate. I assume it’s for consistency and because it’s a low effort way to cut through all that milk and sugar in expensive lattes. Americans have also been conditioned to associate dark, bitter coffee with “strong”.

The irony is dark roast has less caffeine than lighter roast and it’s usually done to mask defects in the bean. Whether to roast light, medium or dark typically isn’t an arbitrary decision or based on any preference. There’s a whole grading process where the ideal roast is determined based on the quality of the beans.

The highest quality beans will often be roasted medium and you start going darker as you get into the lower quality stuff. Basically, you’re cooking off bad flavors that may be the result of sour beans, mold, insect damage, chemicals or worse. There are all kinds of farming practices you don’t want to know about where they get away with it by roasting dark and/or blending with a little bit of a higher quality coffee.

The thing with Starbucks is they actually start with good beans so they don’t have to do this. They also have a wide variety of suppliers and bean types. They could easily put together a great flavor profile that would work for lattes as well as black coffee. But things do change a little bit from one harvest to the next. Starbucks is all about consistency. You can order the same drink at any location in the world and it tastes exactly the same every time.

A small black coffee is $2 because people will pay that much. The cost is less than 25 cents for the coffee. The cup and lid might cost more than what you’re drinking if it’s a commercial grade bean. Coffee is a high margin business.