I can’t stand the taste of coffee. I have never been able to drink the stuff, it gives me an upset stomach and a headache. So when my roommate wanted to go to Starbucks yesterday, I hesitated going but I thought I would go for the ride. As we approached the door, I noticed they put a sign up that read, “Come join the Ritual.” I immediately thought of Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s book, Taste of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants.
In the chapter in which he discusses coffee, he describes that coffeehouses was a meeting place for business men to discuss work. Throughout the years, they have turned into places for anyone to go to drink coffee and mingle. There aren’t very many “Central Perks” anymore, they have recently lost that persona. Now it’s a quick visit to Starbucks, or an escape to be alone and do work. It is no longer a place with individual mugs and that personal touch. That has been replaced with paper and plastic.
As a result of this is occurring, I think that that Starbucks wants that old feel of the coffee house to return. It was a good advertisement move by them because it will give the people more of an incentive to stay for longer than they might have originally or to think of the coffeehouse as a place to go hang out. We will see if it works.
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