Coffee lovers spill the beans

Jul 11, 2008 (The Kansas City Star - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- SBUX | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Starbucks may have met its McMatch.

The retail coffee goliath broke the news recently that it would close 600 stores. Most of them have been open for less than two years, a sign, some say, that the company oversaturated the market.

Do we really need more than 16,000 Starbucks?

We took to the streets of the Country Club Plaza to ask a few coffee connoisseurs what they think and to conduct an unscientific blind taste test. Our tasters drank from unmarked cups, so they didn't know which brand of coffee they were drinking.

Because some point to competition from other restaurants -- namely McDonald's, which this year introduced a line of specialty coffee drinks -- we tested hot and cold vanilla lattes from Starbucks, McDonald's and one popular Kansas City coffee shop.

Starbucks and McDonald's -- whose drinks were about 70 cents cheaper than the coffee shop drinks -- came out even in our small survey of coffee drinkers.

Mary Price, 53, preferred the Starbucks hot latte and McDonald's cold latte.

Price had just left a Starbucks before taking the latte taste test.

She says she'll continue to frequent the store because it's on her usual route.

What did she do to get her energy boost before Starbucks became popular in the '90s? She can't remember.

"I probably drank Dr Pepper," she says. "I had some other form of caffeine.

"I adore caffeine."

More than 60 Starbucks in the Kansas City area aren't too many, Price says, because the ones she visits all seem busy. She just returned from Washington, D.C., where there are probably four times as many, she says.

"They have them every two blocks in Georgetown," she says.

Melvin Finley, 36, preferred McDonald's hot latte and the Starbucks cold latte.

Finley, who doesn't frequent Starbucks, won't change his coffee-drinking habits based on price.

"I buy cigarettes, and that costs me $5 every day, so it doesn't bother me much," he says.

If he needs his caffeine, he's going to buy his coffee, no questions asked.

Henry Pham, 25, preferred the Starbucks hot and cold lattes.

Pham classified his choice latte as "Romantic, with a candle."

And that's how he views coffee shops, whatever brand it may be: a place to build relationships.

"Coffee, any kind, aids relationships," he says. "Best friends. It can make you very close with coffee."

"Starbucks can make you take time and relax."

Even with gasoline prices and other budget pressures, Pham goes to Starbucks all the time.

"Hello! Life is too short," he says. "Enjoy. You make money, you need to enjoy."

Darrell and Cassandra Stevenson (siblings), 23 and 25, both preferred McDonald's cold and hot lattes.

"I think the coffee is McRiffic," says Darrell, who gets McDonald's coffee every day. "I'm a huge connoisseur of McDonald's."

Will costs ever make him stop buying fancy coffees?

"On my disposable income, not really," he says. "I expected gas prices to go up. I'm not going to change my spending patterns because of that."

He does admit to cutting out his cable and Internet rather than forgoing his daily java -- it's a matter of priorities.

Cassandra wonders whether Starbucks is struggling because it started selling too many extras, but she does go there on a regular basis.

"Coffee is something that I like. If I have to cut something, I'm not going to cut that," she says.

In the end, convenience comes out on top: "There's no McDonald's near where I work."

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