a mandate on taste

consumer reports reports to consumers that mcdonald's premium coffees (newman's own organic, in the green mountain family) beat starbucks regular coffee in their in-house testing. this is interesting on a couple of levels, none of them having anything to do with the relative quality of either coffee.

first though, to disclaim, i've never tried mcdonald's new coffee, despite the fact that they offer it for free with any of their delicious sammiches every morning. i do, however, have a cup of starbucks' ethiopia sidamo in front of me as i'm typing this. and it's pretty damn good. ooh, also in the interests of full disclosure, i kinda sorta work for starbucks. and have for years. in fact, starbucks not only pays my rent and my bills, but they bought me a bike when mine got stolen. nevertheless, i like to think i'm vociferous in my criticism of my corporate overlords, both on and off the job. plus, like the evaluators in the survey, i'm trained in the intricacies of coffee-tasting. my palate be hella educated, yo.

there, now that that's out of the way, on to the coffee survey itself, and more importantly, my problems with it.

ok, back to the taste thing. the appeal of coffee is very, very subjective, and i'm not just talking about what kind of milk or how much sugar you add to it. (don't even get me started on calling your fucking latte "coffee" because it's just not right) whether or not a random person enjoys a cup of coffee depends very much on characteristics that your average joe probably wouldn't even know how to characterize, like acidity, body, and mouthfeel. these traits interact with the three levels of flavor (top, middle, and bottom) to create the overall taste of a cup of coffee. if this sounds nerdy, well, that's because it is. and i go here not to prove how uncool i am (duh) but to make the point that every cup is different. there are starbucks coffees i hate (verona) and starbucks coffees i love (shade-grown mexico), but my opinion of the company's offerings as a whole are relatively constant. unlike mcdonald's, i should point out.

so am i defending starbucks? maybe. a little. more like condemning the conditions under which this test was conducted. for instance, were all the coffees they tasted organic? or just mcdonald's? were they latin american? african? asian? blends? light roasts? dark roasts? were they freshly ground? freshly brewed? how long ago were they brewed? were they all 100% arabica? was the coffee brewing equipment clean?

god knows i can't vouch for my own store on some of these factors, let alone five different stores with five different sets of corporate standards. and maybe these variables will cancel each other out across the field of candidate coffees, but coming fresh from a course on research methods, the whole thing seems a little sloppy to me.


notice how i don't dispute the value thing though. newman's own organic coffee is fair trade certified, and thus about as guilt-free as coffee can be. unlike starbucks (cafe estima aside). and the mcdonald's is still cheaper! if there's anything about this that should embarrass the suits in seattle, it's that.