woods Senior Member Joined: 11 Feb 2009 Posts: 3 Location: hamilton, ontario, canada Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Wed Feb 11, 2009, 4:11pm Subject: Starbucks Latte Art
I got bored working at starbucks and decided to try my hand at latte art about a year ago. here is a pic of a few i poured today in ontario canada. the one in the back sat around for a while and 2% never holds up well. anyway, just wondering if anyone else has seen or poured some art at a starbucks?
Posted Wed Feb 11, 2009, 4:23pm Subject: Re: Starbucks Latte Art
When I worked for the siren a couple years ago I poured rosettas on all my drinks to kill boredom ( and I was a shift too :-/ ). Don't have any picks kicking around though.
It was pretty depressing because nobody'd ever notice it, usually just grabbing their lid and slapping it on in one movement.
rbh1515 Senior Member Joined: 15 Feb 2003 Posts: 1,154 Location: Milwaukee Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: LM GS3 Grinder: Mazzer Vac Pot: have one Drip: no Roaster: never use it
Posted Fri Feb 13, 2009, 8:02am Subject: Re: Starbucks Latte Art
woods Said:
I got bored working at starbucks and decided to try my hand at latte art about a year ago. here is a pic of a few i poured today in ontario canada. the one in the back sat around for a while and 2% never holds up well. anyway, just wondering if anyone else has seen or poured some art at a starbucks?
I've been to many Starbucks over the years and never seen any art. I've talked to many of the baristas about art but most know nothing about it.
One thing that always amazes me at good coffee shops, and this happened to me this morning-->I get a good barista that makes a great drink, pours beautiful art on top, and before I can even admire the art and comment on it, a lid goes on. This is a pretty common occurence for to-go cups. Maybe most people don't notice or comment so they just put the lid on automatically. Too bad!!
Posted Fri Feb 13, 2009, 1:33pm Subject: Re: Starbucks Latte Art
HA! *$'s? Id pay a dollar extra to even get microfoam there. Forget latte art. The foam I get IF i go there is the type of foam that looks like soap bubbles. The pitcher is half steamed milk and 5 parts bubbles. They pour the milk in and scrape out the foam. Put that foam together with thier super dark espresso roast/blend, and you have one really bad tasting drink.
At my starbucks, there is a staff of, idk, 25? including the manager, there is TWO people who like coffee. The rest all drink Frappa-mocha-java-no-soy-half-caf -double-foam-with-sprinkle-ACINO. I became friends with a girl who works there, and us two and the manager are alone in coffee-loving. The manager brought her old solis sl-70 into the store a couple months ago and leaves it in the break room.(she now owns a barely used Isomac tea, which she got for $400. Yeah I know, don't get me started Its barely used and in mint condition, It didnt even need a de-scale before use!!!) Ill go hang out there towards closing time, and usually bring some fresh beans with me. Either my roasted or KLatchs espresso's. Since they're closed, and only have superautos available, we'll use the sl-70 and pull some shots and hang out. She go the regular PF and ditched the PPF the day she got it, she tells me. Sometimes I wont have beans to bring and well use starbucks beans. If we grab from the back of the shelves and use a light roast(medium my most standards) then we can enjoy some pretty decent espresso.
I find it hillarious that while they're using superautos for customers and the majority of thier drinks, there is a solis sl-70 in the break room. Its rarely plugged in, as no one except my friend and the manager there really likes coffee. I think there is coffee somewhere in the 24oz they drink out of. But for the two of them, and when I come in, we'll take that baby out and pull some nice shots. They dont have a grinder there all the time. Sometimes the manager will have hers in the office, but im not sure what it is. Ill usually bring my PeDe with me.
Stole the thread a little... sorry.. I just find it funny that no one who works there even likes coffee unless its covered in sugar and frosting. If they had semi-auto multi group machines, Id easily work there. But since there is no control over the drink process, I wouldnt serve people the drinks there. I go there soley because the manager is pretty cool, and, lets be real, my friend is a girl, and she rivals me, both in consumption and geekdom. And I drink ALOT OF COFFEE. Its hard to find a GIRL who will deal with coffeegeek-dom, let alone enjoy espresso,
Jeff
...Follow Your Bliss... ....And grind finer, tamp lighter....
In the last 6 years of selling Mazzers, we have only experienced one defective grinder.-Jim Piccinich 1st-line Equipment, a Home-Barista Forum Post
Posted Fri Feb 13, 2009, 1:44pm Subject: Re: Starbucks Latte Art
JmanEspresso:
You sure paint all the people that work there with one broad, closed-minded brush.
Starbucks for all it's faults is a fantastic college job. Even some of us really dedicated to coffee work(ed) there because the pay is decent, and you get health benefits. Sounds like your local store doesn't have anyone that cares about the coffee but really why should they, the customers don't and more to the point it's just a job and the barista-ing trade isn't well paid because nobody wants to pay well for it ( people complain about the price of a cup of coffee at *$, at $2.00 for 16oz... that's cheap, most of the places I go to are $3.50 for a 12oz press/drip/clover)
If you don't like starbucks that's fine, there are good reasons for it, but don't be an ass to the people behind the counter who you have no idea why they're there. People don't apply at starbucks because of a love of coffee.
Posted Fri Feb 13, 2009, 4:10pm Subject: Re: Starbucks Latte Art
Braininajar,
I am sorry if I offended you. Truly, I am.
My experience with starbucks has always been similair to that described in my post. Thats not to say that it is not a good job while at college. IN todays economy, any job is a great job. It's just that with three starbucks around my area, I have found the experience to be the same. But in my defense, never once have I ever been anything but polite to the people who work there, regardless of how much they know about coffee. I have worked in the foodservice industry for 5 years, and still going, and I know what its like to be behind a counter for 6 hours+ and have to deal with unruly customers. I realize that most people who work at starbucks are not coffeegeeks. But you would be surprised to see how many people go into starbucks expecting coffee that is the best in the world. I used to work at a panera that was right next door to starbucks, and would go in for an americano. Constantly there are customers who have a air of smugness about them, which I feel you got the idea that is how I am. I don't want to be portrayed that way at all, so please, if I gave you that idea, hear me out.
First of, never once have I treated any of the people behind the counter with anything but kindness, even if they were not always the same to me. Second, the starbucks in my area, which I am basing my opinions on, employ a lot of people who will tell you *$ is the be all and end all of coffee and espresso. I have been in there and heard them bad mouthing the other coffee houses in our town, saying that they have no clue what they're doing. One of the most common is that they make wrong espresso because the beans they use are not french roasted like starbucks espresso beans. They will tell you that espresso beans must be very dark and oily to make real espresso. Any other roast is for coffee. Another favorite of mine is that they have no right to charge 2.75 for a latte because thier espresso is wrong. how is it wrong? well besides the beans being wrong, its (and i quote one employee) "much thicker then ours, our espresso is just like our coffee, they're espresso is almost syrupy. Its thick like that because the way they grind they're beans super fine allows them into the cup.Have you ever seen the way they push down so hard on the coffee holder? Yeah, they know what they're doing" "oh and plus they use an old espresso machine that you work yourself. ours is automatic, its advanced to make REAL espresso. Thier machine is outdated and old" (they use a La Spaziale S5, fresh roasted coffee, and train their baristas correctly) When you hear something like that, coupled with the fact that theyre leaving work with a 32oz frozen strawberry frappacino, you wonder to yourself why they think they know so much about coffee. But the amount of ignorance in many of the employees at my local starbucks makes me think the way I do about them.
Still, even with all that. I never have "been an ass" to anyone who works there. If thats what they want to think and do, good. If when I ask what they use for thier espresso and they tell me "espresso roast, what do you think", then I of course would end up having the notion of thinking the way I do.
Point is, starbucks around me dont employ people who know about coffee, but they act like they do. They bad mouth other coffee houses that take pride in thier work and produce quality coffee and espresso. So my opinions I believe are spot on, based on my experience with starbucks, and I stand by my thoughts of the starbucks AROUND HERE. I will say that maybe I got a bit carried away, and didnt provide enough info to adequately back up my statements.
So, please, If I offended you, I truly am sorry. Starbucks Im sure is a fine job. I really do not want to be thought of as a close minded pretentious person who thinks no one but me can make good coffee, because that is far from who I am and what I believe. And, most importantly, I did not expect anything much better then DD coffee from starbucks, and, what I got was a bunch of teenagers bad mouthing the other coffeehouses and misguiding customers as to what coffee and espresso should be/taste like. And never, NEVER have I treated any of the employees with anything but kindness, regardless of how they treated me. I am not that type of person. And I really don't want to be seen that way. And again, Braininajar, I am truly sorry if I offended you, you, as well as the rest of this community are a great place to hang out, and I do not want to cause trouble, and certainly do not want to be someone who is looked at badly.
Thank you for hearing me out and I am very sorry for offending you.
...Follow Your Bliss... ....And grind finer, tamp lighter....
In the last 6 years of selling Mazzers, we have only experienced one defective grinder.-Jim Piccinich 1st-line Equipment, a Home-Barista Forum Post
Posted Fri Feb 13, 2009, 4:28pm Subject: Re: Starbucks Latte Art
I apologize as well, I can see that I came off a little hash.
I do tend to get a little defensive with Starbucks because I know why people work there ( it's the pay and the benefits, it's not the coffee ) and that everyone and their dog bad-mouths them. Especially small coffeeshops, 90% of whom in my experience exist solely because someone decided to try to take a bite out of big green's profit and actually manage to do a worse job of delivering palatable coffee. Most of the towns I've lived in with the exception of Vancouver, the best coffee in town was (pathetically) *$ .
Starbucks is by no means good, but they are consistently adequate.
Anyhow this thread is entirely derailed from the subject of starbucks partners making latte art by now so I'm going to stop posting in it.
i'm unfortunately been finding them to be neither consistant nor adequate. Or maybe I've just become more picky. Perhaps a little from column A and a little from column B.
At anyrate, i agree with everything else. Starbucks is by all intents and purposes a model employer. Decent wages for entry level positions, flexible hours, and benefits for part time employees which is nearly unheard of.
Woods, very nice art! good job!
So here's what I'm curious about, any starbucks I've seen has those big wide mouthed bell pitchers. do other starbucks have narrow spouted pitchers or can that kind of art REALLY be made from those wide mouthed pitchers; if so, I've got a lot to learn :?
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