The Provenance of a Cup

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          The ritualistic consumption of coffee and its social necessitation symbolizes an element of consistency in the daily lives of many consumers. With the purchase of every cup, consumers strengthen their dependency on coffee, seeing it not only as a tangible food product, but also a means of control. The provenance of coffee is seldomly communicated with transparency, however - especially by large, capitalistically oriented corporations like Starbucks. Consuming coffee to satisfy immediate satiety and taste preferences is a common reality in consumer culture and one that significantly undervalues the complex processes involved in its production and commercialization for mass consumption. Emphasis is placed on its use value relative to society; coffee is often worshiped and fetishized on the level of the material (Ritzer, 2017). The coffee industry touches the lives of million people worldwide; whether consumers, farmers who harvest and process coffee beans or nations whose economies and livelihoods depend on coffee farming, coffee carries with it meaning relative to each unique culture that it interacts with.

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          Coffee has two species: arabica, primarily cultivated in Latin American regions, and robusta, primarily cultivated in African regions. While each vary in terms of flavour and growing conditions, both give yields three to five years after plantation (Coste, 2000). Arabica accounts for over 60% of global coffee production and is the source of all Starbucks coffee (“Growing Conditions,” 2015). Coffee beans are seeds extracted from the coffee cherry fruits that grow on Coffea plants. Coffee grows optimally on small farms in subtropical regions near the equator and along the coffee belt such as those listed in Figure 1. The primary coffee-growing regions are Latin America, Africa and Asia/ Pacific and each region’s unique landscape and climate influence the flavour profile of the harvested beans. (“Growing Conditions,” 2015). Starbucks sources its coffee from over twenty countries within the three aforementioned regions. Popular Starbucks blonde roast, for example, comes from Latin America and African regions, while medium roasts like Breakfast and House Blends come from Latin America and dark roasts from Asia/Pacific (“Tasting Guide,” 2018). Figure 2 displays Starbucks’ single-origin coffee beans labelled according to their origin country (Guatemala, Timor or Rwanda) within the coffee belt.

          Harvesting coffee refers to the extraction and processing of seeds from Coffea plants. Processing can take a wet or dry form, with each requiring different quantities of water and sunlight exposure. Mechanical extraction of coffee seeds can follow either a washed process, whereby beans are washed and fermented for 18-36 hours and then washed again before drying, a semi-washed process, whereby beans are washed and laid out to dry in the sun, or natural processing, whereby coffee cherries dry directly on the bean (“Tasting Guide,” 2018). Once processed and dried, beans are bagged in burlap sacks and transported to roasting facilities where they are roasted, blended, packaged and shipped to distribution centres (“From Bean,” 2020). Coffea shrubs are planted at the beginning of rain season and trimmed frequently to avoid soil contamination. Climatic factors like sunlight exposure and rainfall as well as rich soils, temperatures between 23 and 28 degrees Celsius and annual rainfall of 60 to 80 inches are key in the optimal growth of Coffea plants (Coste, 2000). Ultimately, the conditions of processing and harvesting coffee are reflected through the unique aromas and taste of beans once roasted.

Starbucks’ Mediated Illusion of Environmental Sustainability

          There are severe carbon ‘costs’ associated with the cultivation and mass production of coffee. Maslin and Nab (2021) note that coffee generates as much carbon dioxide as cheese and half that of beef -- the worst carbon offender. A daily cup of coffee contributes significantly to global warming and environmental concerns associated with the depletion, contamination and exploitation of land, ecosystems, livelihoods and air quality (Coste, 2000). According to data derived from a Carbon Footprint Calculator, a year’s worth of coffee consumption for the daily coffee-drinker contributes 155kg to their annual carbon expenditure. Approximate carbon emissions of popular coffee beverages are illustrated in Figure 3 and summarized as follows: 21g of carbon dioxide emitted for every cup of espresso or black coffee boiled (53g with milk), 85g for an americano, 235g for a large cappuccino and 340g for a large latte (Berners-Lee & Clark, 2010). This data is indicative per cup, boiling only the required amount of water. For Starbucks these numbers are likely larger as coffee is often brewed in advance and in large quantities.

          A 2018 Starbucks environmental sustainability audit report indicates that Starbucks contributes to the emission of 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually (“Baseline Report,” 2020). 11% of total carbon emissions was expended from coffee, 6% from packaging and 7% from other pre-made coffee beverages (Pfanner, 2020). Food miles accounts for distance travelled between origin countries to each of Starbuck’s five roasting facilities in Washington, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and the Netherlands. Distance travelled between roasting facilities and distribution centres and retail stores worldwide is also accounted for. The distance travelled by Starbucks’ popular Malawi Peaberry coffee blend, for example, is around 21,200 miles, yielding about 1.2 million pounds of carbon dioxide in the process (“From Bean,” 2020). An overview of this process is outlined in Figure 4 and broken down as follows: from a farm in Malawi, Sub-Saharan Africa, processed beans travel via cargo 19,500 miles to Seattle, then shipped to a roasting facility 15 miles to Kent, Washington. After roasted, beans are shipped 700 miles to a distribution center in Auburn and then shipped to Starbucks retail locations (in this example, about 2,000 additional miles to a San Diego Starbucks store) (“From Bean,” 2020).

          Moreover, the Starbucks Baseline Report (2020) finds that in 2018, 1 million cubic meters of water was used for the cultivation of coffee beans. To this figure, coffee contributed 5% and packaging another 5%. With respect to waste, the Baseline Report (2020) finds that Starbucks dumped 868 metric kilotons of water as waste pollutants: 35% of which was from food and beverages (“Baseline Report,” 2020). Research suggests that between 1 and 15 cubic meters of water is needed to produce 1 ton of raw coffee. This large number threatens origin countries who are generally more prone to climate change and agricultural degradation (Pfanner, 2020). While coffee can be grown under shade or in the sun, shade grown coffee is not as harsh on the environment. This is because shade grown coffee reduces water consumption, prevents soil erosion and contamination and decreases run-off from agricultural chemicals and fertilizers (Coste, 2000). However, sun grown coffee more efficiently produces yields and is thus the preferred growing method for commercial retailers like Starbucks seeking quick turnover.

Representation and Semiotics: Packaging Coffee

          While more than 90 percent of coffee production takes place in developing countries, consumption is predominant in industrialized economies (“Coffee’s Hidden”). Coffee is much more than a food item; it is a culture in itself - one that is socially constructed and ingrained in the backdrop of everyday routines. Coffee brings with it semiotic and connotative value and its representation in cultural landscapes elicits meaning relative to consumer cultures worldwide. Whether an on-the-go meal replacement before a long workday or a productivity booster to kick the sleepy out of the individual, the abstract coffee cup is often glorified and regarded by consumers as a sort of reliable ‘saving grace’ (Ritzer, 2017). The act of purchasing coffee is spectacularized; coffee is positioned as both the subject and justifiable excuse to see friends and socialize. Coffee groups and “coffee moms”, for example, communicate just that: gathering with others to deliberate. The absence of the cup in this context would take away from the coffee tasting and ‘coffee-going’ experience and the communicative freedom it permits. Thus, as a discursive food text and medium of communication, coffee cultivates a unique environment that grants freedom to deliberate, to take breaks, to reward oneself and to choose among flavours.

          The discursive environment cultivated around the coffee cup is reflected in and through Starbucks’ culture. Starbucks coffee is combined with a service and this assures guests that with every purchase, they buy more than just a food item, but into the Starbucks lifestyle, community and café experience (Duncombe, 2012). This “third place” experience is inspired by perceptions of freshness and authenticity and uplifted by friendly baristas, community bulletins and free WiFi (Simon, 2017). The social politics of coffee is realized through Starbucks’ typification of the Habermas’ ideal public sphere situation: it encourages social interaction and fosters inclusion by customizing drinks, personalizing cups with names and providing communal seating.

          Moreover, as a means by which individuals communicate, coffee can also serve as a marker of class, empowerment and/or expression of sophistication (Elliott, 2008). There are several stereotypical assumptions associated with the brand of coffee consumers choose to purchase. For example, a homemade cup of coffee packed in a to-go mug ‘reads’ differently than a coffee from Starbucks does. Homemade coffee is simply coffee. However, Starbucks coffee signals meaning beyond its obvious food qualities. Popular connotations of Starbucks coffee include, but are not limited to, the following: socialism, luxury, prestige, high social class, sophistication, modernity and fashionableness. Starbucks coffee is a fashion statement in itself; the Starbucks cup is an ‘accessory’ that consumers proudly brand and hold high every day.

          Starbucks is the poster child of the coffee industry and exemplar of brilliant marketing. Starbucks creates a sense of fear of missing out; that is, it makes it a mission, via advertising, to show consumers who don’t drink Starbucks coffee what they’re missing. The pornographic qualities of Starbucks, as Adams (2004) would argue, is realized through its presentation of dominance and its communicated distinction from other coffee retailers. It achieves this via advertisements that re-present a sense of superiority-over or mastering of the coffee industry (Adams, 2004). Starbucks coffee is not average coffee, but rather an elite café experience and gourmet cuisine in itself. As Elliott (2008) notes, Starbucks “creates an upscale and cosmopolitan image by liberally grinding Orientalism into its beans, coffee and marketing literature”; its cuisine qualities are reflected through not only “core” coffee signatures, but also through particularization and manipulation techniques used to establish unique etiquette and dining protocols (Belasco, 2008). This narrative of social exclusion polarizes coffee drinking on the basis of class and cultivates new normative markers of power and hierarchy of consumption. This is especially demonstrated through Starbucks’ media presence. Popular influencers use social media to intensify and ‘hype up’ the Starbucks lifestyle. This is achieved by popularizing go-to Starbucks orders, drink challenges and hacks or by ‘performing’ social and economic class by posting content with Starbucks coffee placed strategically in the background as a sort of prop.

          A semiotic analysis of Starbucks’ coffee packaging and widely recognized coffee cups displays how Starbucks ‘successfully’ packages ethnicity alongside environmental innocence. Strategic marketing of coffee and seasonal coffee favourites reinforces the important relationship between consumers and their coffee. Coffee is glamorized and lusted via Starbucks’ advertising; drinks are often presented as unearthly and angelic, enticing consumers to try them and stay in the loop. Starbucks advertisements objectify coffee by emphasizing its aesthetic and flavour while masking the complex labour processes involved in its cultivation (Ritzer, 2017). Coffee becomes an independent reality and object of the consumer’s fetishized gaze; its ‘thingification’ is signalled by its mass commercialization, as Adams (2004) argues. In result, workers are alienated and “labour capitalism is reduced to being a means to an end: [capital]” (Ritzer, 2017, 53). Holiday coffee beverages like the chestnut praline latte, for example, are branded as seasonal spectacles, urging consumers to take advantage of their limited availability. Figure 2 displays how Starbucks’ single-origin coffee emphasizes its origin location. Packaging ethnicity in this way - namely, by highlighting geographic location - Starbucks commodifies the exotic “other” (Elliott, 2008, 180). Moreover, as Adams (2004) would argue, by disowning the environmental and labour connections associated with its coffee, the dominance embedded in Starbuck’s culture and communicated via its packaging is prominently established and solidified.

          Regardless of the brand, coffee is widely fetishized with notions of accomplishment and/or leisure (Alisidoran, 2014). Students and busy professionals, for example, often view coffee as a saviour. This supports coffee’s common representation as essential to daily ‘survival’. Similarly, in the covid-19 era, coffee is labelled as an essential service. Essentially, then Starbucks reinforces the social fetishization of coffee in that when consumers purchase a cup, they also buy cultural belonging – and that which is cultivated and maintained by the luxurious fantasy world devised around the coffee drinking experience (Duncombe, 2012). Next to crude oil, coffee is the second most valuable commodity on earth (“Coffee’s Hidden,” 2020). Individuals are hooked, obsessed and addicted to their daily dose of caffeine; this speaks to the immense cultural capital and verified merit coffee has acquired in societies far and wide. Coffee is a language in and of itself; its discursive power lies in the feelings of immediate satisfaction and inclusion it provides consumers. Starbucks’ signature blends package ethnicity without transparency of labour practices, conditions of production and environmental abuse that accompany each cup. This “absent referent”, as Adams (2004) suggests, reassures consumers of their innocence by separating coffee from any idea of human or environmental cruelty. With every sip, Starbucks aims to ‘numb’ or re-direct doubts or questions pertaining to the origin and environmental footprint of coffee beverages. Starbucks avoids these questions by marketing a façade of cultural inclusion and environmental responsibility under misleading packaging rhetoric and insignificant ‘green’ action. For example, Starbucks cups are made of only 10% recycled fibre and are thus not fully recyclable (Nader, 2021). Despite the illusion of environmental responsibility advocated for by Starbuck’s in Figure 5, for example, modifications like replacing plastic straws with drink lids and double cupping strategies with cup sleeves contribute minimally and insignificantly to the preservation of the environment (Nader, 2021).

          The social construction of food and the language used to represent food commodities fundamentally alters its perceived purpose, use and exchange value in societies. Coffee is entrenched our culture as a daily staple and its fetishization is driven by desires of social acceptability and inclusion (Rock, 2017). Starbucks epitomizes the commercialization of food and the cross-contamination of food and luxury; this is propelled by the strategic disassociation of food from its provenance. Meticulously controlled food representations are not only a Starbucks special, but, as implied in the film, Eating Animals (2018), also one used in the meat industry via marketing that disconnects eating meat with animals. Starbucks enables consumers to consume coffee commercially and acquire not only a taste for its coffee, but also a sense of dependency. Starbucks coffee and its abstract presence as a commodity reflects corporate ideologies aimed at the bottom line and represents complex social interactions with imbedded social hierarchies of power and preference (Adams, 2004). Overall, Starbucks has significantly transformed they ways in which coffee is interacted with and consumed. As paralleled in Banana Land’s (2014) discussion of the sensational advertising of Bananas, Starbucks has influenced the beverages we drink, when and where they are enjoyed, what they taste like and how often they are consumed. Culture continues to be re-written with every new Starbucks menu addition. 

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