starbucks challenge 3.5

have you officially hit the 21st century when you use AIM to talk to your girlfriend in the morning, instead of calling? whatever the case, i was invited to the local starbucks this morning (at mount-royal and brébeuf, for those keeping track) in order to attempt the starbucks challenge, v 3.5:

So during this first week of ought-six, we’re starting easy. We’re wondering if Starbucks employees are aware which of their coffee blends are actually fair trade certified, as opposed to Starbucks’ own internal “fairly traded” “certification.” Considering that there’s only one fair trade coffee at Starbucks — Cafe Estima — it shouldn’t be that hard, as long as someone has taken the minute to let employees know that Cafe Estima’s the fair trade blend. And to make it even easier, Cafe Estima’s brewing as the coffee of the week this week (at least in the US & Canada)!

ella and i like to do this thing every little while where we go out and read the paper together – of course, it usually ends up with her doing crosswords and me typing away instead. we did, however, participate in this by asking for fair trade, which they had not brewed.

i admit that i do not like to make people feel uncomfortable, and so as soon as she went ‘no, we don’t,’ i piped in with ‘you don’t have estima?’ rather than become yet another insistent customer to the under-paid/-appreciated, who have to work on a sunday afternoon rather than laze about pretending that blogging is a regular job.

anyway, they fail this challenge. according to what i’ve read, it was supposed to be estima accross the board in canada and the US today; i suspect what actually happens is that employees just brew whatever happens to suit their fancy (particularly when there’s no boss around).

whatever the case, i intend to talk about this more on my podcast in the near future. i really enjoy this kind of mass social experiment (as previously mentioned) and would love to talk more about it.


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2 responses to “starbucks challenge 3.5”

  1. City Hippy Avatar

    Hey there

    Thanks for participating…have added you to the feed (del.icio.us/starbuckschallenge) but I have one question…which store was it?

    Namaste

    Al

  2. dave Avatar

    you bastard. i was there too, you know. what’s a guy got to do to get mentioned on your blog? because if it’s what i think it is, no thank you – i have bad knees.

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