Starbucks Espresso//retro’d and ristretto’d.

We’re taking Starbucks beans back to their roots. No fully automatic machines, it’s time to get down and dirty.We’re going to load up the Mazzer. Grind and dose into a portafilter. Tamp it, and run it through a Synesso.

To give you a bit of a prelude - one of my best friends works at Starbucks as of a few months ago and gets a pound of espresso free every week. I’ve been dropping by a few times a week since he started and learning lots about the Starbucks philosophy and how all the drinks are prepared, so that’s how this whole idea came about. I’ve long been wondering what the beans would taste like if handled properly. After all, it’s not fair to judge them when they are ground, tamped, and pulled all from the same machine with the touch of a button. Why not pull some shots the right way, and then see what happens?

3 free pounds of espresso and a free Thursday night later…

The first thing I noticed was that the beans didn’t have a roast date on them, only a “best before September 27th, 2008″ stamp. I’ll let you guys decide what exactly that means, I’m still not really sure. I was assured by my friend that these beans were indeed the very ones they used in store, so it was fair game.

The actual beans were much darker and oily than any of the beans I was used to handling. We use JJ Bean at Crema so that is all I had on hand to compare it with. On the far left is Espresso JJ, which is more of a light/medium espresso, followed by Nero Profundo, a much darker espresso, and capped off with the Starbucks. You can see even next to the dark Nero in the middle just how dark the Starbucks bean really was.

My first few attempts at pulling shots with it failed gloriously. It was really blonde and thin, and coming out way to fast. After about 10 minutes and a couple degree heat change (up to 204.5) it was looking as good as I was going to get it without drastic changes. It actually doesn’t look that bad when you are pulling it, but it really is thin and rather uncharismatic when it comes down to it.

I was pulling the shots pretty short (just over an ounce to an ounce and a half) and there was actually a surprising amount of crema in the shot glasses.

To be fair, I didn’t want to let anyone try the espresso until it at least had some decent color or aroma. After a short bit of decent improvements, I plateaued and decided it was time. The espresso was light honey in color, and I actually managed to get a bit of flecking, but you had to look close. (Like, lean in an inch-away-from-your-computer-screen close.)

The taste, despite the color, was not that of honey. At first contact with your taste buds it is rather inoffensive, but then all of a sudden a tar like after taste hits you and stays, lingering in the back of your throat like a shot of Buckleys. Fair enough, no surprise here. Let’s see what happens when we add some milk to it in a sweet black cup.

Voila! I dare you to tell me you don’t want to at least take a sip of that. Now, don’t get me wrong, it didn’t rock my world, but it wasn’t that bad. Almost drinkable, to say the least. Almost anyway. It was still exponentially better than the straight up espresso though.

No serious surprises here, and you can’t blame them. It would be near impossible to roast the mass amount of beans a company like Starbucks would require and keep the quality at the same time.

All excuses aside though, in the end it doesn’t really matter, the beans just aren’t good enough.

Oh and by the way, we only ended up using 2lbs, so anyone who wants the last pound is welcome to grab it for their own testing. You have until September 27th of 2008, so timing shouldn’t be an issue.