This was a fun and educational read. Clark is a young author (this is his first book) from Portland. He has a dry wit that had me laughing while reading. His book goes into many in aspects of Starbucks, as well as coffee culture here and around the world.
I enjoyed the telling truths about Starbucks as a company. There are many reasons not to like this coffee chain, but many of the reasons you hear every day are BS. Towards the end of the book Clark makes the a comment, really more of a questions, is starbucks a global homogenizing force, or just a product of global homogenization. The fact is Starbucks is not forcing anyone to drink their coffee. People are choosing to do that. We can mourn the loss of culture in places like China and London, but people there are still buying starbucks.
Another key point I took away was the false idea that Starbucks is bad for the mom and pop coffee house. The opposite is actually true. Starbucks is a gateway coffee company. A person begins with a vanilla latte, but will later branch out. Also their coffee is not that good. So when drinking coffee is socially "cool" why not drink good coffee. Starbucks needs the milk in lattes so no one taste what their coffee really is. This leads many to find a local coffee shop and enjoy coffee how one should. (A side note for anyone in Normal, do not seek out Coffee House, its name is misleading. It should be called "Hang out of Patchouli wearing vegetarians that are anti-everything and elitist, but despite how well educated they want you to think they are, can still not tell that they are drinking horrible coffee, House". That place has the worst coffee I have every had, second only to instant). So basically this was a great book for a coffee nerd like me, and Clark writes in a way that even a non-nerd would enjoy it. Check it out if you have some time.
