Chatbots telling us what we want. Robots making our coffee. Baristas reduced to smiling servers. If Starbucks and other brands get their way, this is the future: a frictionless, interactionless, lifeless coffee experience.
Alaska Airlines has switched its coffee supplier from Starbucks to Stumptown Coffee, with the press release really leaning into how hard they worked to create a coffee that tastes good in a pressurized container at altitude.
Your La Marzocco espresso machine can now talk to your Mahlkönig coffee grinder and make automated grind adjustments in real time. Well, so long as you have very specific models from both manufacturers.
A National Labor Relations Board judge ruled that former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz illegally threatened a union supporter during a “listening tour” in 2022. Schultz’ comment that the barista should “go work for another company” amounted to “a warning that protected pro-union speech was not compatible with employment at Starbucks,” according to Reuters.
I'm a coffee writer and creator of The Pourover. Based in Scotland, I have over a decade of experience in the specialty coffee industry. Ask me about coffeewashing. It's pronounced Fin (he/him)
