A personal record: 3 Starbucks in one day. Basically, I’m trying to find out if my many, many “local” Starbucks are brewing the press-release-mandated fair trade blend as the “Coffee of the Week” this week.

The answer? Yes, they are. The stores I visited: The one near USC (Jefferson & Hoover), the one near my apartment (Pico and Robertson), and the one my new green-minded friend Kim and I checked out earlier this evening (202 Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills) — before we headed off for local, organic, fairly traded (but not certified — more on this later) decaf coffee at Urth Caffe.

Of the three, the Beverly Hills Starbucks was the only shop that actually pointed out that the Cafe Estima blend is fair trade certified (pic right).

Well — I have mixed feelings about Starbucks’ rebranding efforts. Christine of Starbucks told me that the Cafe Estima blend was made to replace the fomer Fair Trade Blend because Starbucks is planning to introduce additional fair trade blends. But no one can give me dates on when this’ll actually start happening.

Yes, according to its press release, “Starbucks offers five different offerings of Fair Trade Certified coffee to its Foodservice customers, such as college campuses, restaurants and hotels.” But I found out, via Cindy of Starbucks, that even for those accounts, “five different offerings” only means five different SKUs — which are like ISBNs for coffees. Basically, all that’s being offered is the Cafe Estima blend and a decaf fair trade blend — five different “offerings,” means different types (whole bean vs. ground) and sizes (1 lb. vs. 5 lb., for ex). And the decaf isn’t even gonna be offered at regular Starbucks stores — only at the colleges and other places where, according to Cindy, “we’ve had the highest demand for fair trade.”

Sad news for me, because I only drink decaf after 6 pm. My shrink mandated this after I complained one too many times about my insomnia problems

Of couse, I’m an SC Trojan, and could get my decaf fair trade Starbucks fix on campus. That too isn’t so easy — After reading the press release, I thought Starbucks was gonna immediately switch all their college offerings to fair trade. Evidently, Starbucks only meant that they’d do so if our dining & hospitality services specifically requested it.

Not a daunting task for green LA girl, since I already have plans with USC’s hospitality services to schedule a Starbucks fair trade tasting on campus to convince students the switch is necessary. But damn — Starbucks is really, really skilled at making statements that seem pretty fucking fair trade progressive to the lay reader — statements that are never technically false, but, to any who care to do additional research, ring somewhat hollow…

**Update, 10/12/05: And for the bookworms who were psyched about this statement in the press release — “Additionally, U.S. Barnes & Noble cafes serving Starbucks coffee will serve Cafe Estima Blend on a daily basis as one of several featured coffees.” — don’t expect fair trade at your Westwood or Santa Monica B&N anytime soon. That offer only applies to the B&Ns located on college campuses.

**Update, 10/24/05: Starbucks put out a new, revised release! Check it out –

Filed in: starbuckschallenge tea trade UK USA business cityhippy coffee corporate csr drink fair fair-trade fairtrade LA London losangeles responsibility social starbucks

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