Starbucks stories

I became seriously addicted to coffee this past spring, when I was studying full-time for Step 1. Before then, I drank tea every morning for a little bit of a caffeine hit but mostly just to sip something hot during class. Coffee was an occasional treat or a studying aid during testing weeks, but not a necessity by any means. By the end of May, though, I was a full-fledged addict. I started each morning with a small skim latte. Nowadays, I take what I can get in terms of coffee. I weaned myself off of sugar a long time ago -- since I refuse to drink Diet Coke, I figured giving up sugar in my coffee was a reasonable calorie decrease. I haven't made it to black coffee yet, but it will probably happen soon enough, because I prefer milk in my coffee and really don't enjoy it when I have to settle for creamer, or worse yet, powdered creamer. Yuck. In any case, I thought these Starbucks stories were pretty interesting.

McDonald's Takes on Starbucks
McDonald's is going to start offering espresso drinks, without the condescending "tall, venti, grande" sizes. It may seem weird, but I think they'll probably do a good job with it; their upgraded coffee blend that they introduced a little while back is actually pretty good. In the greater DC area (and possibly other places, I'm not sure), you can get a really good iced coffee from McDonald's -- it's their specialty drink version of the sweet tea they advertise around here.

Don't Fear Starbucks - Why the Franchise Actually Helps Mom and Pop Coffeehouses
This Slate article was very interesting. It turns out that Starbucks do great things for independent coffeehouses, as opposed to the Wal-Mart effect. And did you know that the failure rate for a coffeehouse is only 10%? Those are pretty good odds; maybe I have a backup backup backup career in my future.