No, this isn’t about Avis.
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that a battle is (ahem) brewing for the Number 2 position behind Starborg, oops, Starbucks, which has 11,000 stores. Battling for 2nd place are Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, with over 400 stores; Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc. of Emeryville, Calif.; Caribou Coffee Co. of Minneapolis; Diedrich Coffee Inc. of Irvine; and franchiser It’s a Grind Inc. of Long Beach.
Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is working to get its products in Ralphs (owned by Kroger) stores, to battle Starbucks which is in Vons (owned by Safeway). According to the CB&TL Chief Executive Sunny Sassoon (who names their kid “Sunny?”), Coffee Bean is winning customers, even in areas where it is in proximity to Starbucks and other competitors, because the chain’s coffees and teas taste better and its baked goods are fresh. Starbucks sells a mixture of fresh and defrosted baked products.
The article notes that decades ago, Americans gravitated to lightly roasted — often under-roasted — coffee sold primarily under the big labels found in supermarkets such as Folgers and Maxwell House. Starting in the 1970s, chains such as Peet’s and Starbucks popularized dark roast coffee, with a heavy, often burned or toasted flavor that included hints of caramelized sugar. Americans started to associate dark roast with high-quality coffee. However, dark roasting also masks a lot of flaws. Ask anyone who drinks Starbucks 🙂 CB&TL roasts lighter.
M’self, I don’t like Starbucks because their tea selection is limited to the Tazo stuff, and they don’t have Darjeeling. CB&TL, as well as Peet’s both have decent selections of tea and don’t make tea drinkers into second class citizens.
You’re probably asking yourself: So where does cahwyguy go when he buys tea out. The answer is simple: Barclays Coffee and Tea in Northridge, a few blocks from my house. Individual owned, and caring about their customers. For mail order, Stash and Adagio.
And with that, lunch is over, and so I shall turn to my mug of Adagio Darjeeling #22.
