Well, let’s start another year. And when the calendar is born anew, we also give ourselves a chance to be reborn, to turn the page without prejudice to the side of bad habits and the worst self and start cleanly at a higher level of existence. These Novel Year’s resolutions are an opportunity to manifest ideas and become.
For me, I enter 2025 with a softness of spirit. This year I intend to be a gentler person to those who miss my kindness. Take Starbucks for example. I spent 2024 talking about their various anti-union activities, the harmful labor practices used in producing the coffee they sell as ethical, the whole Oleato debacle and the ensuing Schultzean mess, and their novel CEO who commutes to work in super-work mode.
Did all these things happen? Sure, but what exactly did they do to me? I am not one of the thousands of people who have been negatively impacted by any of these decisions.
So 2025 will be the year I hand over a nicer version of myself to Starbucks and consider with an open mind whether their various corporate machinations will wait – they just introduced what???
From Friday, January 3, at Starbucks has introduced new additions to its drinks menu for 2025and includes an absolutely massive cortado. Their version of cortado includes three shots of ristretto lighter roasted Blonde Espresso, which should be combined with frothed milk until a uniform taste is obtained as much as eight ounces.
Why?! Why are they like this? After brutally taking on the macchiato and wreaking havoc on every barista around the world, who now has to clarify which macchiato the customer wants (espresso with a shot or Massive Gulp caramel bomb?), Starbucks is now increasing its attack on barista interaction and flanking it in the cortado. This is linguistic neglect. Starbucks is playing God, and this is some Tower of Babel-style nonsense.
And what other early 2010s specialty coffee menu items will be co-opted and in Vitamix language? Will they start serving Gibraltar? Only 12 ounces and served over ice. Will there be a Kyoto drip? Renamed their batch brew. How about a washed Gesha Single Origin Panama Green tip? A blend of Arabica and Robusta coffees from Vietnam, Brazil and Colombia. The dreams of 2010 are alive at Starbucks. And why not? Words don’t matter. Howard Schultz (falsely) claims to have introduced the latte to America, but why stop there. Howard Schultz, latte. Starbucks has gone post-truth and is dragging the rest of us to hell with it.
It’s all just too much. Put cortado on your menu, alright. Or you could put an eight-ounce espresso and a milk drink in there and come up with a novel name for it (though a latte would work, too). Maybe pianissimo, maybe even octado. It could literally be anything except the five or ten words already used to describe a very specific espresso drink.
Well, we did pretty well. I made it all the way to January 7 with the resolution that I would not mock Starbucks. 2026 will be different, I can feel it.
