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October 13, 2005
Starbucks Challenge: Gallery Place-Chinatown
G Zombie's enthusiasm for The Starbucks Challenge is contagious. As G Zombie notes, Fair Trade coffee is a pretty cool thing, ensuring that coffee farmers and harvesters get fair working conditions and a fair price for their coffee. According to green LA girl, Starbucks policy is to make Fair Trade coffee for you if you request it, and this week, one of Starbucks' featured coffees is the fair-trade certified Cafe Estima. I had some grading to do this afternoon, so I took the Metro down to the Gallery Place-Chinatown Starbucks, located at 800 7th Street, NW, here in Washington, DC (it was in the early afternoon, around 12:30 PM), to see if they could pass The Starbucks Challenge, reported G Zombie style:
Barista: Hi, may I help you?So, basically the trip was successful in that I got Fair Trade coffee, but she seemed a little unclear on the Fair Trade concept.
Me: Hi, could I get a cup of Fair Trade certified coffee?
Barista: [Complete look of confusion]
Me: If I understand correctly, your Cafe Estima is Fair Trade coffee. I'll have a venti cup of that.
Barista: [Still confused] I don't think we have that. These are our available coffees.
Me: [Spotting the Cafe Estima, labelled only as "Estima"] I'll have that, the Estima.
Barista corrects my pronunciation [mine sounded like "estimate," hers more like "esteem;" anyone know which is correct?] and serves me a cup.
I happened to enter this particular Starbucks during a lull in customers, so I would have been prepared to request that they French-press a cup, but luckily they had some already brewed.
technorati tag:starbuckschallenge, starbucks, fairtrade, fairtradecoffee, coffee
Posted by chuck at October 13, 2005 2:48 PM
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[Source: the chutry experiment] quoted: According to green LA girl, Starbucks policy is to make Fair Trade coffee for you if you request it, and this week, one of Starbucks' featured coffees is the fair-trade certified Cafe Estima. I had some grading t... [Read More]
Tracked on October 14, 2005 4:02 AM
Comments
I believe it's pronounced esTEEma. Thanks for joining in the challenge! The real test will come next week -- since Cafe Estima will not be readily brewed, come Monday. At that point, I hope the barista will agree to individually French-press it for you --
Posted by: green LA girl at October 14, 2005 1:34 AM
I hope so, too. I'll try to hit at least 1-2 other DC Starbucks this week and go from there.
Regrading the pronunciation: no wonder the barista looked so confused.
Posted by: Chuck ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://chutry.wordherders.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 14, 2005 7:44 AM