The title of this post isn’t an oxymoron. The manager of the neighborhood Starbucks has been a wonderful supporter of my kids’ elementary school. He provided coffee for an early morning outdoor event and his employees signed up to volunteer at the school.
Since the store is collecting toys and books for children in a hospital, our school has been passing the word to bring donations. I took my donations today and ordered coffee while I was there as it’s a chilly day. They wouldn’t take my money.
Losing money from the donations and freebies? I think not. Thanks to his generosity, I plan to go there for all my Starbucks fixes and other parents are doing the same. I was so excited by the experience that I emailed and told other parents the story and have no doubt they will go there, too.
Dear Sirs,
I am writing to you from Austin TX after mailing a few complaints about the scarce of demy-tasses in all your facilities.
I love to go to Starbucks sit and relax with a very hot cup of espresso coffee. However, they are always out of demi-tasse cups. These are always the excuses: we do not have any; we only have 3 and they are washing; they are all broken; and we have ordered them….
This is inadmissible. Starbucks???!!! They cannot afford to have enough demi-tasse in their cafés to please the “espresso coffee drinkers”? They have served me in paper cups, Styrofoam big cups, in big china cups, in mugs. What is the difference from having an espresso coffee not served in a demi tasse china cup? Yes, the coffee is cold or tastes like paper.
Please, sirs, furnish enough demi tasse cups to all your Starbucks here in Austin. There is no excuse for this. Is the famous Starbucks trying to save some pennies or has no knowledge how an espresso should be served: demi tasse heated and then filled with your precious coffee???!!!!
Waiting for an answer,
My best regards,
0:-) doCéu
cotrim@austin.rr.com
Since when does starbucks have styrofoam cups? Are you sure you weren’t at some wanna-be coffee joint? Evert Bux that I frequent has at least 15-20 demitasses… waaaayy more than needed, and always available.
I am a former Starbucks Partner and in no way a fan of Starbucks but I do find a problem with the above comments. Starbucks never has and never will use Styrofoam in any of it’s stores. They have done extensive research and found that customers find it anti-environmental even when using “safe” styrofoam. For that reason it has been banned from all Starbucks stores and a manager who took it upon themselves to use it would be fired or severly reprimanded. While some parts of the above story may be true, the part about getting “Styrofoam big cups” definately is not. As far as Starbucks never having demitase cups that is true as store managers are reluctant to dip into their budget and lower their bonus to supply customers with ceramic mugs of any kind.
Got a reply from Starbucks today — within 24 hours of emailing the company:
“Greetings Meryl,
“Thank you for forwarding on the information. I will make sure that this information gets forwarded on to the right department.
“If you have any further questions or concerns, please email us at http://www.starbucks.com/customer or call (800)-235-2883 to speak with a customer relations representative.
“Best Regards,
Tim G.
Customer Relations Representative”
One thing I recall from my time working at Starbucks is that we had a couple of demi-tasse cups stashed away and not all partners knew about them. Another thing I remember is being trained to wash tumblers and other cups that customers would come into the store with. Starbucks will make drinks in your own tumbler for you and they usually rinse out and heat the tumbler with steaming hot water from before making coffee drinks in it. This seemed to be really common on early morning shifts. I warmed a lot of tumblers for to go drinks and a few ceramic cups for those coffee purists that can sense the dimensions of the coffee’s layers of flavor.
You know you probably love to complain as much as you love to say demi-tasse. You could get a special demi-tasse cup and take it with you to Starbucks each time you go. You could probably even find a travel case for it. You will find that will afford you lots of opportunities to say demi-tasse as you ask them to wash and pre-heat your demi-tasse cup for your dopio ristratto con panna or any other delightful espresso beverage you enjoy. You can even pick one up next time you go in to Starbucks. Starbucks loves it when people come in and buy cups there at the store, and they will heat those and serve in them for you on those rare occasions when you forget your special cup.
I bring my own pool cue to bars and I take my own mic to karaoke night because they are the best for my style of enjoyment, they are higher quality than I’d ever expect a bar to provide. You will show everyone in that store, partner and customer alike, that not only are you a discriminating coffee connoisseur but that you are always prepared to enjoy the perfect cup of espresso while the rest of the gauche Frappuccino drinkers experience plastic and paper flavor.
While I agree that sturdy china espresso cups are certainly the most appropriate way to serve espresso shots, I am oddly amused by the addition of hyphens in the word, ‘demitasse.’