Submitted 10 months ago by davriellelouna@lemm.ee to youshouldknow@lemmy.world
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/business/starbucks-china.html
Here in Copenhagen Starbucks has had trouble opening up shop as well. We have quite a few street corner or park trolly baristas, as well as a local chain called Joe and the Juice.
Starbucks now finally has one or two places locked down over here, but it was pretty funny to see a Starbucks popping up, only for it to be replaced with a Joe and the Juice 6 months later.
If frequent the life out of a Joe’s in that scenario to hammer home the point
So I used to think that people hated on starbucks because “hurr durr real men only drink black coffee” and starbucks had extremely sugary and milky drinks that had barely any actual coffee in it. “No problem” I thought, “I like sugary drinks!”. So I went to a starbucks at the shopping mall close to where I live and ordered something and it was literally just a glass of ice cubes with like three sips’ worth of milk and syrup squirted into it. It genuinely felt like the barista forgot one of the ingredients or something. I thought it was a fluke but when I was at that mall at a different time I got a different iced coffee and it was the same stuff: glass full of ice cubes with a squirtling of syrup and milk. What even is the point!?
Can’t imagine why they’re losing customers.
Smart folks
pork flavor latte
Baseball, huh?
To be fair “luckin” and “coti” coffee is genuinely leagues ahead in taste, and not more expensive than Starbucks, so I guess it was coming sooner or later
I don’t agree, they’re mostly fine (Luckin better than Cotti), but Starbucks flavor is stronger and more “dark roast”. Also, their Shanghai coffee roasters facility is in a league of its own!
Having said that. China’s economy is not doing well and consumers are looking to cut back on expenses. I guess Luckin is the “good enough” option?
lol, Starbucks laments that people actually know about coffee there now.
Nowadays people in China have access to amazingly cheap coffee grinders, because many great ones are made there (DF series, Timemore). Their colonial projects in Africa have resulted in relationships with lots of African coffee farmers. The Chinese province of Yunnan has coffee farming in the mountains and I really want to try some, one of these days. I think burman coffee has some green from there. They also have access to lots of coffee grown in Vietnam where the historical patron client relationship of tribute and suzerainty between the two countries has resulted in lasting coffee relationships. I find that Chinese roasteries I have seen online tend to have a lot of information about their beans published, as well as extensive cupping notes.
Specialty coffee in China is probably a more innovative scene than the West Coast USA one but I don’t have access to everything they’ve got in terms of beans and equipment and vice versa.
Cuz it’s truly legitimately just bad coffee?
And somehow mcdonald’s is expected to be quality barbecue?
None of these chains are any good but we use (or used to use them) for convenience and consistency
Never excellence because we know all the excellent places get bought out and turned into corporate shit factories so we pick the least offensive shit factory that suits our lifestyles and just get on with the business of working in a world that is slowly burning down to feed the greed of a pathologically insatiable owner class
Genuine question - how is starbucks a convenience? It has always striked me as a rich people thing. I can make coffee at home three times as fast and twenty times as cheap while not tasting top much worse. Can’t do that with fast food.
Starbucks positions itself internationally as an ultra premium brand. I remember visiting one in Thailand and being astounded that the prices were the same as the USA, just converted to bhat. This meant that a single drink could cost like half a day’s wages for a poor Thai person. I imagine the situation in China used to be similar before wages and purchasing power caught up. Now that consumers in China know enough about coffee to tell that Starbucks is crap, they won’t pay American prices for it any more, and it’s got Starbucks sweating.
McDonald’s coffee is much better than Starbucks. Still not great, but better.
Starbucks coffee tastes like my shit smells.
Funny enough, the most expensive coffee you can buy is made in elephant dung. Probably still tastes better than Starbucks coffee.
I’ve been avoiding starbucks for year. Garbage company. But I do have a gift card I think so I might be forced to use it, or give it away since if I don’t then they just get a free donation to their company.
Good, starbucks was never any good. Burned beans make for burned coffee; shit is nasty.
I’m trying to do that in the US too. Haven’t used a Starbucks excerpt as an emergency bathroom for 2 years.
New marketing campaign? Emergency bathroom coffee!
I should know this?
Right? Post this in news this isn’t a YSK, and the OP fails to explain WHY YSK
Exactly what I was thinking. Why should I give a shit that Starbucks is failing in China? I didn’t even know they were in China.
Because it represents the tipping point where America lost its dominance. Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee but an affordable access to experiencing the American way of life.
If Starbucks loses its appeal it means that people stop looking up to America. Students won’t dream of becoming a scientist in America, business men won’t long for participating in the American economy, consumers don’t care about buying American products for being American.
All American products from now on have to compete on quality and service. This changes the value of the products and the value of the work that American workers deliver.
Yeah this more an Uplifting News article, but I guess people who still shop at (nonunion) Starbucks should know it.
Oh hey, glad the Chinese figured out Starbucks is bad.
I too prefer locally owned coffed stores!
… Too bad I’m from Seattle, and Starbucks pretty much killed them all.
Fuck Starbucks.
They appropriated the ‘chill local coffee shop you can hang out at all day’, ran most of out of business, first in Seattle, then nationwide, then all over the world, and now they just run a coffee themed fast food empire.
Fuck. Starbucks.
Just came back from Seattle and drank coffee from various coffee places that were not Starbucks every single day.
Would you stop clouding the narrative? We’re trying to hate spiral over here
They failed miserably in Australia as well.
They did, but somehow they’re managing to start making a comeback with their drive through stores. People that want super convenience will put up with a worse coffee for it.
Local companies are out-competing the multinational on price, quality and local knowledge. Isn’t this the free market working as designed?
I couldn’t give a single shit what any Starbucks executive thinks about any decisions anyone else makes.
That last line from the ex CEO is so stupid, Starbucks is the lower end coffee shop, it’s the McDonals of coffee. Anyone who cares about quality coffee would prefer local roasters with fresh coffee anyways
“as chinese customers become more knowledgeable about coffee, they will want to upgrade from lower-end or discounted products”
Sick burn.
Starbucks coffee is shit anyway. Support your local roasters and shops, or roast your own if you have the means. It’s a great and delicious hobby.
Good.
Coffee culture in China is on another level. They have fast coffee like Luckin, Cotti, and dozens more brands, all of which are better and have more variety than Starbucks, and they have high end coffees with artisan beans, and all of them are cheaper than Starbucks. They’re not going to win there, for sure.
If Starbucks cannot compete on price, it is nothing. They failed in Australia for being worse than what we already have here.
Beyond supporting local businesses, Starbucks’ coffee is just objectively poor quality in comparison to that of any local roster.
As someone who worked at a local roaster, the coffee was objectively better, but the owners were trying really hard to be like Starbucks in every other way.
I wish the employees had a union, but it was a college town.
I don’t get why anyone goes to a Starbucks still. If I want aRtiSAn coffee I can still get it cheaper and probably far better quality.
My favorite indulgence is an iced coffee with bananas from Nordstrom (I’m still confused why they went into the coffee business but they are quite successful) and the large cup is still cheaper than what Starbucks offers. I haven’t set foot in one for a couple of years because 7$ for an iced mocha was revolting.
Their iced mocha coffee was all I drank but even the glass bottles they sold in stores I had to stop buying. It’s coffee, not gold!
A lot of suburban sprawl in the USA doesn’t have good local coffee shops around and Starbucks is the best, or at least reasonably close, option available to get a fancy caffeine fix.
Plus they serve lots of things other than over roasted drip coffee.
I like some of their iced drinks and macchiatos. But I like sweet garbage with too many calories. So my palette isn’t exactly refined. However, that’s a lot of the reason is just lack of options and people genuinely like their sugary sweet drinks and will pay a premium for everybody’s favorite drug caffeine.
Big corporate just siphon money to another country and rich executives. Supporting local business, means the money stay local and they spend it back in the same community that spent it on them.
Plus the Star Bucks coffee is shit.
Centering execs is very on brand for NYT.
Your neighbors pay your salary. The more money in your community the more there will be for your salary.
Sometimes you’re likely to want to get groceries.
Sometimes you’re likely to want to go to restaurants.
Sometimes you’re likely to need to get housewares.
Sometimes you’re likely to need services from plumbers or mechanics or electricians.
If you choose your local community, that money stays in your community, and it’s likely to make it back to you.
So next time you’re buying a burger and fries, check out your local restaurants.
We were a whole lot poorer when everything was only regional. We need a balance. We will be a whole lot poorer and belligerent as a species if we are totally insular.
We are actually pretty close to being able to defeat the resource scarcity of our planetary prison. Gravitational differentiation is a bitch for sequestering almost all of Earth’s heavy resources after the Theia collision and the last time the entire surface of Earth was molten. The continents are like the flux or froth that rises to the surface. Nearly all of the heavy elements on the surface of the planet are from astroid collisions that have happened since the continents formed. The thing is, there are these things called m-type asteroids that are remnants of planetesimal cores broken apart in the early formation of the Sol system. Some of these large m-type asteroids are in near Earth orbits. These are differentiated, aka concentrated with rare elements. Fully accessing just one of these has a potential to completely upend what wealth means and all of our financial institutions. It could easily dwarf all human resource wealth that has ever been accessed on the surface of Earth. Accessing this kind of resource wealth will drive us into space in the future at large scales. We already have the materials science to build O’Neill cylinders that have Earth like centrifugal gravity and are 9.1 km in diameter by ~30 kilometers long. The scientific papers establishing this were published by Dr. O’Neill in the 1970s. The only thing holding us back is the will and the resources. We only get to that future if we put aside tribalism and work together.
We don’t need this dichotomous oversimplification of all or nothing. We need balance and we need to stop the culture of unregulated unethical capitalism. Capitalism must be regulated like the drug addicted STI ridden whore that it is and handled like a worthless ragdoll because this is what it really is. Corporations are disposable worthless things. They are not people. They should be the homeless beggars. They are the fodder on the front lines of conflict because corporations and companies are not people and killing them is a great and valiant thing. New companies can fill the voids. This is the whole point in capitalism. The problem is that we have let companies rule over people and that is feudalism. It is not a democracy at all. Whores cannot lead or rule us or we fall apart. They have no ethics, no values. They would just as soon kill you, but that is okay only because they are not people and they must die with extreme prejudice. Businesses have no rights except to be useful for a time. Being established as a business must become a liability not an asset because it is within real open market capitalism. No one gets all the gambles right every time unless they are cheating and in both cases they must die.
I don’t disagree but a lot of chains rely on franchisers, who can still be a neighbour. Also the employees can still be your neighbour. Also the supplier can be your neighbor. Buying local is definitely a good choice, likely the better choice, but not all ‘companies headquartered in a different city’ are equally evil. Also because economy of scale is a thing. That’s why you’re not talking about ‘companies headquartered in another street’ for example.
All true! But the profits still get siphoned off elsewhere. My Lowe’s employs us locals, but the hardware store downtown doesn’t exist to provide shareholder value.
Again, you’re right. Non all non-local sellers are evil capitalists, hell bent on making us poor.
Shit. Wait until they see Canadians doing it too.
laughs in australian…
fuck em both.
it depresses me to know that they will return for another attempt, but for now they are used as an example of failure. www.abc.net.au/news/2008-08-07/32188
Shitbucks
hark@lemmy.world 10 months ago
They got more knowledgeable about coffee which is precisely why they’re choosing places other than starbucks.
NotJohnSmith@feddit.uk 10 months ago
I know right? The absolute balls on the guy - anyone that’s had a Starbucks knows that it’s that shit that you move on from. It’s not far removed from a McDonald’s milk shake.
I’m hoping here (UK) and certainly continental Europe we see similar decline in their revenue, and other US companies that forget to pay tax
kameecoding@lemmy.world 10 months ago
As someone who doesn’t like coffee, I like starbucks specifically because it’s basically coffee flavored milkshake.
But I also go like once or twice a year when I am on a trip so I am not exactly helping their bottom line.