It has been such a long time since I wrote my last post on this blog. I have been in lack of motivation to actually write something until today.

We went to Helsinki center, hoping to find a nice evening experience. Kamppi was the place we chose because it was Sunday and it was nearly 8 pm. We passed many shops and we were kind of excited to realize that we had actually never tried a real Starbucks’ coffee before. Today it could be a good opportunity. We three, husband, wife and a 2 year-old girl stopped at the bar and ordered our drinks. The coffee barista looked beautiful but showed no energy to answer some simple questions for first-time buyers like us. I was somehow annoyed and found a table to sit with my daughter, letting my husband choose our drinks himself. The tables were full of used cups and they had three employees behind the bar doing nothing to help. No other customers were there. We really had to wait for a clean place to sit.

Wikipedia

So he ordered iced coffee latte, caramel coffee, and kid’s hot chocolate. To my surprise, the drinks came fast and it seemed like it had been made long time before we came. To my biggest disappointment, the drinks tasted worst than the worst I could make at home. Even worst than the taste of instant coffee. I bought bottled starbucks coffee in the super market and they tasted actually good. But the coffee we tried in Kamppi was terribly bad. I just missed so badly how street coffee in Saigon tasted in summer days. It was only 50 cents for that delicious coffee. Here we paid nearly 6 euros for a cup of coffee which was worst in quality. It can’t even compare to Finnish coffee. Next to Starbucks, I tried Beanie and coffee machine in Kmarket, all are really good. When my husband went to put our cups to the trash, he overheard two guys behind us sipping the coffee and asking each other: is this coffee? We laughed so hard and thought they were having first-time experience at a Starbucks cafe just like us.

So I start to wonder all great information we heard about the company, the culture, the quality… All now seem a big lie to me. I do not know if it is just a bad day for us and for that particular shop, or Starbucks is just that quality.

I would like to know how you think about Starbucks coffee if we have ever been there.