Starbucks R&D announce 10 new coffees for these uncertain times!

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After years of world-wide expansion culminating in the mise en misé of opening a Starbucks within a Starbucks in Yokohama, the Seattle-based coffee titan finds itself in the unfamiliar territory of cutting back services, blocking and locking doors, operating largely by apps, and closing many bricks-and-mortar stores entirely.

Corporate research, however, has seized upon this slowdown to develop new blends and roasts that speak to these uncertain times. Keep a keen eye and sniffy nose for these emerging coffees.

Sleepless in Seattle

We enhance our usual blend of over-roasted Latin American beans with a delicate star-dusting of crystal meth, yielding just the right accelerant for these hectic times, whether you are an aspiring warlord, larping the barricadoes, or starting to drift off in a daze toward dawn as you anxiously wait for the money order from your mom to clear.

We’re all in this together.

Streets of San Francisco

This dark, full-bodied, earthy brew is strong and determined enough to keep you warm and cozy through a foggy night on cold concrete.

Discriminating palates will relish the elusive traces of fecal matter and fentanyl playing hide and seek.

Kopi Rakuna

In the rich annals of coffee lore, the serendipitous origins of this uniquely organic roast will snuggle between the exotic kopi luwak and the legend of Kaldi and his perky goats.

In one of our shuttered stores just off Pioneer Square, a gaze of raccoons broke in through an air vent, ripped open a 40-lb. bag of whole burnt beans, ate their fill, and then pooped all over the place, with many of the excreted beans still keeping their structural integrity though now ineffably transformed.

A recently furloughed barista, who had snuck in to scrounge some coffee, beat back the crazed raccoons with a broom, hastily swept up a bag of beans, then ground and brewed them over an open flame with his comrades back at camp. They found the taste exquisitely original, stripped of all bitterness (as well as human dignity), while exuding a certain je ne sais quoi.

Mogadishu

This dry dusty blend from the East African highlands carries subtle hints of burlap, indentured sweat, tribal conflict, and gunpowder flash.

Its austere taste pairs equally well with black skinny jeans or military fatigues.

No one gets left behind.

Murder Hornet

We super-charged our traditional Pike Place with a complex mélange of ginseng, taurine, guarana, ginkgo biloba, carnitine, assorted B-vitamins, and the finely powdered exoskeletons of native honey bees.

For gamesters, Murder Hornet defeats both Charizard and Komodo Dragon.

Newbies must sign a waiver (Gold Card members exempt).

Murder Hornet Decaf

Really? What’s the point? Just suck on this half stack of sewing needles.

Teacher’s Break

Will children ever go back to school as we knew it? If so, this sturdy high-volume brew is ready and willing, capable of enduring up to five hours in a glass pot on a slow burner in the teachers’ lounge without coagulating.

Wispy oil slicks will remind you of failed dreams and lost love as you surf for shoes and wanly smile at cat memes while the kiddies are away at gym class.

Bleached Blonde

We had bags and bags of old fading blonde beans leftover from the spring and summer shutdowns. We’re just trying to salvage something. It’s coffee.

Karen’s Choice

A dreamy blend of dairy, sugar and slurried ice crowned with a mound of whipped cream under a clear half-dome, this milkshake incognito provides just the reward for a long slow crawl around the hairpin drive-thru in your black Canyonero. This concoction contains no actual coffee.

Should it disappoint, and it likely will, Gold Card members enjoy expedited access to the manager.

Pumpkin Spice 2020

Autumn begins—and not soon enough—with the first cup of Pumpkin Spice, freshly curated for 2020, fair-trade, gluten-free, striking a trembly balance of sweet and spicy, of calming comfort and spiking anxiety, of autumnal boots and bunchy sweaters, of hope and despair, mindfully swirled in a liquid mandala whispering sehnsucht as the tiny bubbles dissolve.

Reporter: John Savoie

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