When Starbucks went national in the early 1990s, it was at the high end of the coffee retailer spectrum. But the revolution in good coffee the Seattle-based company helped spark has caught up with it, as have the demands of filling its 21,000 stores worldwide (thus the Chestnut Praline Latte, flavored coffee sold in supermarkets, and Frappuccino juggernaut).
Starbucks has kept a finger in the high-end, buying super-precise coffee machine company Clover, for example, but now it wants back in the upper realms of coffee culture, says Stephanie Strom at The New York Times. Starbucks has opened one Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room in Seattle, and has plans to open up 100 more, taking on smaller chains like Stumptown and Blue Bottle. The Reserve Roastery will sell and roast single-origin and microlot coffee to people willing to pay for it.
Starbucks, of course, has money to burn, so the $20 million flagship Roastery is "a magical place where coffee comes to life," in the words of Starbucks concept design director Liz Muller. What that means, Strom translates, is that "the store intentionally evokes the chocolate room where Augustus Gloop met his fate in Willy Wonka's candy factory," complete with see-through tubes transporting rare beans from roaster to barista. To see what that looks like, watch the video below. --Peter Weber
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
The dazzling coral gardens of Raja AmpatThe Week Recommends Region of Indonesia is home to perhaps the planet’s most photogenic archipelago.
-
‘Never more precarious’: the UN turns 80The Explainer It’s an unhappy birthday for the United Nations, which enters its ninth decade in crisis
-
Trump’s White House ballroom: a threat to the republic?Talking Point Trump be far from the first US president to leave his mark on the Executive Mansion, but to critics his remodel is yet more overreach
-
Nobody seems surprised Wagner's Prigozhin died under suspicious circumstancesSpeed Read
-
Western mountain climbers allegedly left Pakistani porter to die on K2Speed Read
-
'Circular saw blades' divide controversial Rio Grande buoys installed by Texas governorSpeed Read
-
Los Angeles city workers stage 1-day walkout over labor conditionsSpeed Read
-
Mega Millions jackpot climbs to an estimated $1.55 billionSpeed Read
-
Bangladesh dealing with worst dengue fever outbreak on recordSpeed Read
-
Glacial outburst flooding in Juneau destroys homesSpeed Read
-
Scotland seeking 'monster hunters' to search for fabled Loch Ness creatureSpeed Read
