Peet’s Versus Starbucks On The Tiburon Peninsula

Foe almost 20 years on a daily basis I have bought a Venti Soy No Foam Latte from the Starbucks at Strawberry Village.  My wife drinks this as her source of protein as well as caffeine for the day.  The drink was great for 19 years and 8 months and has become terrible for only the past 4 months.  I asked the folks at Starbucks if they had changed their supplier of Soy Milk?  No they have not.  Did they change their coffee?  No they have not. 

I do know that some rookie Baristas have a hard time with Soy as it has a propensity to foam and gets burned if the temperature is too hot.  I had the barista check the temperature of the steamed soy milk to see if that had changed?  No it had not.  I simply was bewildered until I realized the espresso machines at the Strawberry Starbucks’ store are very old and are approaching ten years since the store was remodeled. 

I then found out the machines are hundreds of thousands of shots overdue for replacement.  My source is a Starbucks worker. I then found out the machines significantly dilute the soy milk during the steaming process due to water condensing.  To test if the espresso machines at Strawberry Village are the fault, I started buying the daily Venti No Foam Soy Latte at the Starbucks store on East Blithedale.  The drink returned to its former glory of being tasty and not watered down.  I therefore had found the reason why for 4 months I had bought over 120 horrible tasting drinks and spent well over $500 for the trick of Starbucks selling me water milk not 100% soy milk.

As I am a Starbucks gold card holder since 2008, I called the customer service number.  I spoke with a supervisor about a week ago.  I was promised that within 3 days the region manager would call me.  Of course I have not received a call and of course Starbucks hopes I just go away.  As part of my experiment in the pursuit of good tasting coffee, I started taste testing the 20 ounce soy no foam latte at Peet’s in the Cove.  It is a wonderful drink.  I also found out that Peet’s gives customers three shots of expresso in this size drink not the two shots in the Starbucks’ Venti.  Pete’s also uses straight up soy milk not vanilla impregnated soy milk.

I have to say Peet’s beats Starbucks by a mile for this particular drink in this size.   The only Starbucks store that I now occasionally buy the Venti no foam soy latte at is the one on Blythedale.  Also by saving the two extra miles each way I have a lower carbon footprint by frequenting Peet’s.  I have probably bought 7,000 Venti no foam soy lattes at Starbucks,and If I last another 20 years I may match this number at Peet’s.  The way I feel about Starbucks is they shorted me by 7,000 shots and sold me watered down soy.  I am pretty miffed about Starbucks and may soon have to go after them with the same vigor that I have gone after Bloom Energy.  Let's see if the region manager calls me.