Review - Ditching Starbucks for a true American coffee company
Let's look at Black Rifle Coffee, the first real "threat" to my dependence on Starbucks for a caffeine fix.
First things first, the box it arrived in is awesome:
As an artist, I gotta add: nice branding.
So far, I have tried AK Espresso (brewed):
Nice shiny beans:
Ground up and ready to brew:
Cupped:
AK was really smooth and a little smoky. This is the first one I tried, and I think it is my favorite so far. Earlier in the day before the Black Rifle Coffee beans arrived, I had just finished my final batch of "Starbucks Reserve Jamaica Blue Mountain." At 1/4 of the price of the overpriced Starbucks beans, AK blew them out of the water. So happy to find quality coffee at a much more reasonable price!
Next I tried Freedom Blend:
Once again the beans look great. Like I mentioned earlier I had just finished a batch of the special Starbucks reserve so I don't have those beans to compare, but I did have some Breakfast Blend (disclaimer: not freshly opened) and here are the Starbucks beans for comparison:
The Starbucks beans are in the measuring cup and the Freedom Blend is in the grinder.
Here is the Freedom Blend cupped. Darker in flavor than AK, and still smooth and enjoyable!
This week I tried Beyond Black:
As promised, this is the darkest roast yet. And still wonderfully smooth. All of these brews lack bitter and ashy flavors. They are really wonderful and I'm so excited to try the rest! My boyfriend who is the true coffee connoisseur also agrees: Black Rifle Coffee Company gives us little reason to purchase Starbucks beans ever again.
If you're interested in trying them for the first time, this link will get you 20% off your first order.
As a longtime Starbucks customer, I am truly happy to find a better alternative. I am not happy about the political nature of Starbucks and how they respond so terribly to controversy. Most recently I heard Howard Schultz, executive chairman of Starbucks say that mentally ill and homeless people warrant being kicked out of Starbucks while defending non-paying customers who are occupying table space. I think it's bizarre that they are defending non-paying customers occupying seats that paying customers could use, while also discriminating against the homeless and mentally ill. There have been times I have purchased food/drinks at Starbucks and there was no seating available. I have been a regular and Gold customer, I pay almost $9 for a latte/Frappuccino, and I think they need to show that they value their actual customers. I don't even know how to process that they single out and discriminate against the mentally ill and homeless while saying other non-paying customers with entitlement issues are welcome. My only wish is that Black Rifle Coffee had physical stores for when I am feeling too lazy to make my own coffee, or when I want espresso/lattes. Maybe one day?
A little bit about Black Rifle Coffee Company:
They are veteran-owned, small batch, and roast to order! They are conservative and pro-second amendment! I became aware of them after they pledged to hire 10,000 veterans. I appreciate their American attitude, and now I can say I appreciate their delicious coffee.
(R.I.P. the carafe in these images. It was glass-insulated and shattered yesterday when I accidentally dropped a spice jar in it while preparing to brew a pot of Beyond Black!)
Wow! First, thank you for a post like this. I think coffee reviews are a must and you're the only I've seen. Second, I just had some of this coffee in the office this past week. I really liked it bc I can dig the darker stuff. I am however super curious about the whole package. I had no idea there was more lol!
Glad to follow a fellow artist as well. Coffee is usually part of many artist's toolkit.
Hi, thanks for the feedback! I will be sure to review the others when I try them then. You had some of the Beyond Black? I really like it, almost as much as AK. I feel like Beyond Black is the perfect flavor to pair with chocolate or a brownie. I like AK for a coffee to pair with breakfast because it is so smooth it is refreshing.
Awesome, I will have to check out your art if you post it on your Steemit. Followed back. Thanks again!
It’s always better to go for the smaller craft roasts! Looks like some fine beans
It's a new experience for me and I'm hooked! Starbucks was just so convenient with a store being walking distance away, but I really am happy with this new discovery. :)
You can also find a great variety on Amazon!
GREAT REVIEW! We have one for you to try as well, Homestead Coffee Roasters. THINK all their blends are now organic, and they are VERY reasonable and easy to buy online and ship...
https://homesteadcoffee.com/collections/organic-coffees
Their coffee is OUTSTANDING.
As for Starbucks and Schultz, look, we totally share your enthusiasm for supporting the mentally ill, but that stops at someone deficating in their pants and just remaining sitting, stinking up an entire room. Have you ever tried to eat or drink next to sewer smell? Or worse, tried to SELL food or drink next to sewer smell? Our guess is your take came from a bad source, a media organization that just wanted to stir up the pot. There's two sides to every story, and if you've ever been in a situation like customers found themselves in this situation, it's an understandable reaction to complain to store mgt. This doesn't mean Starbucks should treat a smelly vagrant like the airlines treat people, but having them removed from the store, paying or not, makes total sense. Bad situations CAN be fixed, while being respectful. But remember respect is a two-way street, if you're pooping your pants and mentally ill and refusing to leave to clean up, then something went wrong with the "system" LONG before Starbucks entered the fray. If our mentally ill mother poops her pants in Sears Roebuck, we don't expect anyone to man-handle her or punch her, but we wouldn't be offended too much if someone "helped" her out to the parking lot. but that's just us? maybe we're meanies?
Thanks so much for the recommendation! Organic food is very important to me, so I will definitely be looking at the site to see what they have.
As far as Howard Schultz goes, I didn't hear it from a "bad source" unless you consider his mouth as such? I listened to exactly what he said, as well as what the two individuals said about being kicked out in the recent controversy.
The two men kicked out of the store admitted they walked in with water bottles (not purchased at the store) and sat down. One of them asked to use the restroom and an employee stated it was for paying customers. I don't know of any place that serves food that would allow someone to not only sit down without purchasing anything, but also bring in food or drink that wasn't purchased at the place they are occupying space. From a customer service perspective, that is disrespectful to paying customers if they need a seat and there are people sitting at tables not eating or drinking purchased items (i.e: not actual customers, "potential" customers at best). I have been at Starbucks when it was too busy to find seating and I'm aware of how busy they get.
This is what I heard Howard Schultz say as a response stemming from the incident. Summarized: he did not find nonpaying individuals occupying tables that paying customers could use to be "inappropriate," but he did find it "inappropriate" for mentally ill or homeless people. I don't understand why he would welcome nonpaying customers to go fill the seats at their local Starbucks and dismiss the importance of paying customers. I don't know why he would then feel the need to isolate certain individuals as unworthy of occupying tables. If I walked into a Burger King with a water bottle not purchased there and sat down I would expect to be asked to leave. This is common sense and courtesy to both the establishment and the paying customers. Howard Schultz is supportive of entitled attitudes over paying customers and all I have to say to him is good luck with that. See how valued his customers will feel when the store becomes full of nonpaying squatters, pushing the real customers out of the store.
Thanks again for the recommendation, very eager to see what else is out there in the coffee realm!
ok, from the video, he's got like 5 seconds to answer the question, and he can't really say words like poop or smelly or wearing rags or carrying knapsacks with giant bags of cans for recycling. But that's what he means, despite using "Ugly American" verbiage. He's being general. Quite sure if you asked him the same question while at his dinner table, he's not going to tell you he has a problem with the mentally ill. He's also using "homeless" as a euphemism for rattily-dressed people with hygiene issues. totally get it that speaking this way in generalities isn't perfect speech, but who has time on the spot to be that precise, it's asking a lot. Also, he's been dealing with these problems every day of his life, whereas most of us don't deal with it at all, we don't have to talk to the homeless or mentally ill, or help them, or do anything with them but walk away.
All we're saying is, let's not lambaste people bc they didn't speak perfectly to everyone's liking. Imagine if everything you said was micro-analyzed for improper etiquette, hurt feelings, or biases. totally respect the right to live homeless, hell, we wish the world would go back to roaming hordes with no property lines and freely roaming buffalo, then the homeless might seem brilliant by comparison (and some are). But Starbucks is part of the "matrix", and if you're gonna hang out in the matrix, you have to be "matrixy" or risk getting thrown back over the wall in Brave New World. If you wanna eat at a Michelin 3 star restaurant, don't show up looking like Al Bundy and expect the chef to not throw you out. It's their right as proprietors to select who they want. This works both ways, we also don't support the government telling a bar owner that he can't allow smoking in his barroom. If you don't like smoking, then don't go to that bar, find one that shares your values.
Another perfect example, is American will call ALL Latinos and ALL South Americans and ALL Spaniards "mexicans". This isn't right, and it's even insulting. But just like you might respect wild animals and not shoot them because they ate some of your azaleas, let's not shoot the CEOs for having an "Ugly American" moment. Now if you get him backing up his supposed hatred of vagrants and the mentally ill, feel free to rip into him. But let's all make sure we're getting our facts right, and not just showily jumping on everything that doesn't SOUND perfectly.
Let's give each other some leeway. Feel free to post the video where Schultz backs up that he hates the mentally ill, and we'll get off the soapbox. Frankly, the TV anchorwoman didn't catch it, bc she understood what he was saying in the spirit of what he was saying. Either that, or she's an anti-mental-health anti-homeless racist herself.
God bless delicious pro-second amendment coffee that hire veterans.
Definitely! I'm much more interested in the quality of any product v.s. politics, but I liked what I heard a year ago about Black Rifle Coffee and wasn't sure where to start with beans, especially ordering online. And I am very happy so far with what I have tried. :)
My coffee plantation
