The modern coffee shop was born in a cold, windy place, far away from the sunny fields where coffee grows. Seattle, a Northwestern U.S. city is famous for its year-round cool weather and cloudy skies, and became the first home of the mega-coffee company Starbucks.
In the U.S., the word "Starbucks" brings to mind its green logo, sugary "Frappuccino" coffee milkshakes, and success. Middle school students use their allowances to buy hot chocolate and cookies, college students show up late to class with giant espresso drinks, and office workers complain about their caffeine addictions as they sip lattes and mochas. But the U.S. did not always have a successful coffee industry. Actually, Starbucks saved coffee, and forever changed how people would drink it.
In the 1980's, people drank coffee differently. In the U.S., they viewed coffee as a pick-me-up, not a pleasure. People at work would brew a pot of tasteless drip coffee, or would stir coffee crystals into hot water. Similarly, America tea drinking was uninspired and even less than coffee. With 200 years since the American Revolutionary War with England, Americans did not drink much of the British beverage of choice. The tea that was drunk usually consisted of a simple black tea bag dunked in hot water, and the method for preparing coffee was equally poor.
The founders of Starbucks, two schoolteachers and a writer, looked to Italy for drink inspiration. They adopted the Italian method of making espresso. The first Italian cappuccino machine came to the US in the early 1900s and can still be seen at the Cafe Reggio in New York City. But good Italian coffee was only found in ethnic neighborhoods.
The Starbucks founders brought Italian coffee to all of the U.S. beginning in 1977. Drinks like the latte, the mocha, the cappuccino, the macchiato-are all Italian words and Italian drinks. Instead of the coffee pot, Americans began to use an espresso machine-a giant silver box able to force hot water through ground coffee at very high pressure.
Starbucks was a revelation. Though the drinks cost much more than plain black coffee, they make coffee delicious to people who dislike its normal bitterness. With the additions of cream, sugar, and flavors like caramel and chocolate, Starbucks got people to start drinking coffee at an earlier age. Starbucks destroyed the image of coffee as a pick-me-up, as something a person would drink if he or she had an early-morning job or a test. The company created a new urban accessory, a green and white coffee cup, as trendy as a Chanel purse. So of course, as Starbucks expanded its reach across the ocean, opening stores in Europe, Asia, and Africa, the idea of coffee as an inexpensive designer drink and status symbol traveled with the stores.
Independent coffee shops also bloomed with the changed altered image of drinking coffee. Today, the independent coffee shop looks much the same in Taipei as in San Francisco. Trendy baristas stand behind the counter, slinging single-origin coffee beans, pastries from a brightly-lit case, and occasionally food like sandwiches and salads. In a bewildering circle of events, the typical independent coffee shop now also looks like a Starbucks, which in turn based its design off of independent coffee shops.
While Starbucks continues to expand what it sells--everything from instant coffee to ice cream to wine and alcoholic drinks--many independent coffee shops try to stick to the pure idea of coffee-making. Some do not sell food at all or do not offer Wi-Fi in order to ensure that their customers only come for the coffee. Coffee-lovers are beginning to approach wine lovers in attention to the details and flavors of their beverage of choice.
Without Starbucks, who knows if such a revolution would have ever occurred？ The introduction of artistic coffee to the world can be laid at the feet of the coffee monolith, and now even in some of the most remote corners of the world, a person can enjoy a latte. Even in Kinmen-though there isn't a Starbucks here. Not yet.