Starbucks — Restaurant in San Leandro

Welcome Bay Area comedy and coffee fans!

In my constant quest to make the best coffee locations available to you and why I think they're best, allow me to review Starbucks at this location.

Half the battle with any coffee enterprise is to find and communicate coffee values to burgeoning coffee artists, of which, like in life, there are far fewer of than craftsman.

So out of 18 Starbucks I give you only the second barista to make the five star rating from Marin to San Jose, depending on where my review takes me.

This lovely lady with a tint of blue in her hair in a very traditional Siamese tall bun style that was very flattering. She was open to my query regarding following the recipe of the Brewer's Cup Champions of the past and I was happy to up her game to the power of the square, extractionifically.

That's my word. Extractionifically means everything related to the relationship between what comes from the cup to your tastes and the science of pourover immersion coffee making.

Yeah, those folks who make coffee transformatively at the Brewer's Cup Competition know how to pay attention to the necessary combination of techniques available to studious brewistas worldwide.

This location's interest in my account of the techniques used at the Brewer's Cup, unlike other coffee makers using the immersion method via the attention of this barista, who was aware she had a chance to up her game black apron wise if she paid attention.

The way it ought to be done everywhere were it not for giant market interests. Though they sure did a great job of growing market share.

But the LC is out there fighting for your cup, and here is how this Starbucks barista triumphed over the bean.

I went to the store and grabbed a bag of Sumatra. It was not labeled Mandheling but it was a good single origin Indonesian to test what she would discover in waking up the grind and getting it to sing and dance, like the LC and many others like to do when they have the time.

If everyone realized five minutes or less is all it takes for a cup of coffee that tastes night and day better than the coffee in the warmer behind the counter with all the enticing signs. More people need to train their baristas into a pourover. The difference in taste makes it necessary.

Coffee was never made to be held in reservoirs over heat. It was made to be brewed and drunk. But big coffee has been fooling you for years not giving you the bean's best. They sure did well, though.

You see, coffee is the second largest traded commodity in the world behind oil. It's that important to us.

I explained about wetting the paper, and it resonated with my barista as to the reason why so many of her customers were complaining about the taste of paper in their cup.

Uh-huh.

Then I explained the difference between saturating the grounds (which she ground well on the first pass; something the manager at another Starbucks couldn't do) and immersion, she almost got that but over saturated in the grounds preparation phase but was able to stir a good slurry which my last five star rating wasn't able to achieve in her pourover. To that Marin barista's credit, she did a better pour (to my spec) than this current review.

She over-saturated slightly less than the Marin barista had, so her bean weren't as far into over-extraction early on than the Marin Barista. Resultantly and to her credit, the current review barista heard me and didn't botch the grinds immersion pouring methodology by failing to immerse evenly and treat all grind pourover in the proper manner extractionifically.

It's sort of a competition of hair, really, when you think about it. My Marin barista had a perfect red ponytail, and my San Leandro barista had a high Siamese bun hairdo with a light tint of blue in the tips. :D

The final pour was more easily conquered by San Leandro than Mill Valley, and current review barista commented back to me that this was the way she was going to make her coffee on her break.

I felt so...

The worst Starbucks I've ever dealt with definitely will not return. Tried to mobile order the drinks I wanted and it wouldn't let me saying that it out of all the flavors so you can't order anything but black coffee and some of the food items. It the nearest location to me so I decided I would order what I could and there go to the store. I get the and there a tin of people wait for drinks but no line to order. I get in line and i was able to order the drinks the I wasn't able to order on the app no problem 🤦🏾‍♂️🤷🏾‍♂️. After ordering I look for the mobile order drinks and they still weren't ready. After about 20 mins they had finally got all my drinks and food items. Talking to people waiting almost all of them stand around had been waiting about 20mins plus for a drink. There is no way this the business model/brand that Starbucks is known for and is truly a shame that's 4 cups of coffee and 2 food items could take 30-45mins to get. Not sure what the problem with there mobile order is but if you can't order everything from but you can order whatever in the stored it would seem as if this was don't intentionally to discourage customers from ordering online to pick up in the store and if that's the case why even offer mobile ordering as a consumer convenience. I've been to many Starbucks around the world and this one definitely is the worst...

It took over 20 minutes to get 2 drinks that were both incorrect. They had to remake them. Instead of re-making them right away, both the hot & cold baristas made 3 other drinks from people who were after myself in the line. No apologies were made by the drink expeditor who was obviously a little more than "in the weeds". I give it up to all the kids who worked there today. It's not your fault your boss doesn't know how to schedule or that Starbucks does not have a very good training period. Coffee making & consuming is a fine art & refined social experience. We get to once again congregate in coffee houses, playing games, doing work on our laptops or plainly just savoring each sip of our overpriced couture beverage. Hopefully the management of this particular establishment will soon realize how serious we take our coffee and decide to better train and better schedule the wonderful employees of this multi-national...