This month, Starbucks Coffee Company (Nasdaq:SBUX) celebrates five years
of offering customers a truly unique coffee experience—through
individual cups of the rarest and most exotic coffees brewed on its
patented Clover® brewing system. The fifth anniversary of Clover® brewing
system at Starbucks is also marked by the opening of Starbucks 500th
location featuring Clover® brewing, with plans to double the
number of Clover® locations globally by the end of 2014.
Ka'u from the Big Island of Hawaii is one of the Starbucks Reserve coffees currently available at stores offering the Clover brewing system. (Photo: Business Wire)
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to significantly expand the
availability of our rare and exotic Starbucks Reserve® coffees with the
introduction of the Clover® brewing system in many more stores around
the world next year,” said Andrew Linnemann, vice president, Global
Coffee Quality for Starbucks. “By brewing one cup at a time—using
freshly ground beans to deliver that handcrafted cup of coffee to
order—the Clover® brewing system brings theater to the brewing process
and enables our baristas to have rich conversations with customers about
our coffee.”
The timing is right. According to the Specialty Coffee Association of
America (SCAA), consumer demand for individually brewed cups of coffee
and exploring unique coffees from different regions of the world is on
the rise.
“Over the last few years, we have seen a growing interest from consumers
in looking beyond espresso for personalized coffee options, and they are
finding it in unique brewed or drip coffee experiences,” said Ric
Rhinehart, executive director, SCAA. “More and more consumers are
engaging with coffee—single origin coffee—individually brewed just for
them.”
Starbucks has offered its Starbucks Reserve® coffees, a line of rare and
exotic small batch single origin coffees, since 2010. Harvested at the
peak of the season and then batch-roasted by Starbucks, these coffees
are available by the cup on the Clover® brewing system, where their
flavors are fully accentuated, but also in half pound bags for customers
to brew and enjoy at home. In the last three years, Starbucks has
introduced more than 40 different Starbucks Reserve® coffees and will
continue to offer an average of 14 Starbucks Reserve® coffees per year.
Some Starbucks Reserve® coffees, like Panama Auromar Geisha offered last
April, are so limited in supply that Starbucks makes them available only
online or at a handful of Starbucks Reserve® stores in select markets.
“Our global coffee team tastes more than 250,000 cups of coffee every
year looking for the finest coffee in the world,” added Linnemann. “We
often come across rare gems during our cuppings that we can’t pass
up—even if only a few hundred pounds are available (when compared to the
more than 450 million pounds of coffee Starbucks purchases every year).
In fact, some of the single origins we discover are earmarked for
blends, but are so extraordinary we want to offer them to our customers
as a single origin and therefore present them as a Starbucks Reserve®
coffee.”
From three markets in 2008, the Clover® brewing system and Starbucks
Reserve® coffees are today available in 25 markets in the U.S. and 10
international markets, including Canada, the U.K., Japan, The
Netherlands, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Poland, Russia, Thailand, and, most
recently, Singapore. Customers can locate a Starbucks Reserve® store to
experience the Clover® brewing system through our Starbucks mobile app.
For more information on the brewing system, go to www.Starbucks.com/clover.
About Starbucks
Since 1971, Starbucks Coffee Company has been committed to ethically
sourcing and roasting high-quality arabica coffee. Today,
with stores around the globe, the company is the premier roaster and
retailer of specialty coffee in the world. Through our unwavering
commitment to excellence and our guiding principles, we bring the unique Starbucks
Experience to life for every customer through every cup. To share in
the experience, please visit us in our stores or online at www.starbucks.com.
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