What the . . .

[Lorenzo Perkins]

I love Peet's. In a lot of ways, Peet's is like our older brother. Roasting specialty coffee, prepared by dedicated baristas, a focus on quality in spite of the expansion of the company. Definately something to be respected, and I do.

But (and you knew this was coming), are they to good for the rest of us "barista competitors" now?

http://www.ktvu.com/video/21277650/index.html

*thanks to sprudge.com for breaking this story*

[Jonathan Aldrich]

Seems like a way for them to allow employees that want to compete to compete without Peets having to spend the $ to back/train people for SCAA. Can't really blame them for it. Surprised Starbucks hasn't done something similar already...

[Bryan Wray]

Oh this really is lame... I mean, from what I can see it is lame. Chances are these baristas would get destroyed using Peet's coffees in competitions so instead they have to just copy-cat the WBC format and allow only Peet's employees using only Peet's coffees to compete? Lame... super lame... Almost as lame as a barista competitor pouring from a bell pitcher and not wiping the steam wand off... almost.

-bry

[Daniel Williamson]

agree with both of the above. Was anyone else getting annoyed by the speaker saying "baaaarrrista?" every time?
Kinda cool.......i guess...........sorta........maybe..........no, nevermind.....the bell pitcher, long blond shot, and not wiping the steam wand turned me off.

[miKe mcKoffee aka Mike McGinness]

While I don't love Peet's, I do respect them. They are far better than way too many Indy wannabes who go into business clueless. I've had too many bad to attrocious shots of Hairbender around here, including sometimes at a Stumptown location itself. While I've only had maybe half dozen straight shots at Peet's over the last decade (how I initially judge anywhere) each had been acceptable. Sure their "Dicky" flagship espresso blend is very old school Italian style fairly dark roasted and lacking much in flavor dynamics, but decent none the less. Not stellar by any means, but decent.

I've never once had a remotely decent shot from a Charbucks. Never had a decent Americano. Never had a decent coffee of any form from the mamoth mermaid. I do not lump Peet's in with Charbucks.

That said I actually applaud them for giving their employees an internal forum to compete against each other. They aren't fools and likely know full well their barista and standard coffees couldn't compete favorably against the best in the World. So why try and likely get bad reviews negatively affecting their Brand? Not necessarily a bad business move. Now if they wanted to "up their game" they'd take their Champion, really work with them, and enter in Regionals...

[Maggie Cook]

Are they pretending it's different though? I mean if we had a latte art competition to motivate employees at our store you could argue that we were "afraid of competition" too...but I don't think anyone would. When I saw this video I guess that's what it made me think of. It just seems like something they're doing to motivate their company, I don't think its an elitism thing, or something to avoid real competition.

[nik orosi]

so so sad....
such a shame to see la marzoccos around and bad baristi on them....
constant dosing and tamping?
with swift grinder on?
cappuccino....
steaming...
dont understand their goal...