Howard Shultz, CEO of Starbucks, has been waiting for a coffee machine that provides the back-to-basics focus on coffee brewing. The wait is over. A new machine called The Clover, which “fresh-presses” each 12-ounce cup individually for a price of $2.50. The $11,000 machine runs on a piston that rises and creates a vacuum, pulling water through ground coffee much like a French press. According to a recent Bloomberg article, Starbucks is testing this machine in Seattle and Boston with the goal of increasing traffic.
Such machines have been observed to have a cult following in underground, independent progressive cafés far outside any corporation hands. The Clover is built for quality not quantity. Not only is each cup brewed to order, but the way each cup is brewed can be tailored to a particular bean - light or dark roast, acidic or sweet. The focus is no longer on a great shot of espresso, but rather on brewed coffee. This resurgence of brewing is expected to bring back the “romance and theater” of coffee.
This is far more than just “a cup of coffee.” In this post-Starbucks age, independent cafés are refocusing their attention on the art and craft of coffee selection, roasting, brewing and presentation. “Starbucks and Peet’s were trailblazers in the ’60s and ’70s,” says David Latourell of the Coffee Equipment Company, makers of the Clover machine. “They were the first ones to say, ‘Let’s do specialty coffee.’ People hadn’t tried that before.” These days the rules have changed and instead of others copying the Starbucks Experience for success, it has seems that Starbucks has to copy others in order to recapture customers.
Boring Market owns Starbucks Stock.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Johanna // Feb 22, 2008 at 5:23 am
As a person living in a place pretty far from the “mothership” in Seattle, I find the atmosphere and customer service quite lacking in all Starbucks locations around New York City. I’m not sure how a new coffee brewing machine will offer change, esp. around here. Until the NYC locations can improve their baseline qualities (those that claim to be foundational to “the Starbucks experience”, I don’t know one machine can turn around the industry here.
2 Anna // Feb 22, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I’m a little confused. Is the Clover sold to independent coffee shops, as well as used in Starbucks retail stores? Why would a Starbucks retail store need this machine when they already have machines that do this for them? Is the Clover a replacement for Starbucks’ french press or drip coffee, or something they would advertise as being in addition to these two?
On a side note, I am fascinated at the idea of a coffee maker pulling water up through the beans rather than pushing it down through them. It’s genius engineering, if you ask me.
3 Boring Market » Blog Archive » Starbucks’ Shareholder Meeting 2008: Transformational Initiatives // Mar 19, 2008 at 2:06 pm
[…] is one more transformational initiative that I predicted which would provide the back-to-basics focus on coffee brewing, but I didn’t think would happen […]
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