Milligan wrote:My wife worked as a Starbucks barista for several years when she was in college. She worked there when they still used mostly manual machines. Now I believe it is mostly automated. She said the major difference is that the beans come fresher to use in the cafes than what you may find at retail and the bags were actually dated. I don't think the bags have a roast date on them at retail. Their grinder is also much nicer than what the breville comes with. This was about a decade ago so I'm not sure if this holds true anymore.

I agree that you need to buy either an aeropress or v60 to get the same-ish non-espresso coffee taste. You may also need to dial in your espresso a bit better for the taste you are after.

Can you ask your wife, I'm just curious. How is the coffee brewed in a store? Which method? Doesn't automatic or manual, I'm just curious to know which method they use. I assume not espresso?

Most likely still a custom Bunn-made batch brewer. One source believes it is similar to https://commercial.bunn.com/35900.0010

They bought Clover years ago for a "high-end" single-cup experience, but never really rolled them out.

Espresso is still the Thermoplan, custom for Starbucks.

So if I order a black light roast blonde coffee in black in starbucks, that's custom? Like it's some sort of custom method? Not 9 bar regular espresso?

Custom, meaning Starbucks has enough purchasing power to get a model built to their spec and prevent Bunn (or Thermoplan) from selling it new or used to anyone else.

Nothing "custom" about your order, it comes out of that gallon and a half made up some time ago.

yalag wrote:Can you ask your wife, I'm just curious. How is the coffee brewed in a store? Which method? Doesn't automatic or manual, I'm just curious to know which method they use. I assume not espresso?

Only espresso based drinks use the espresso process. If you order just a coffee it will be taken from a batch brew. The exception is if it is a location that will do a pour over then you can request that. Not all locations do that because it takes a barista a long time to do a pour over. It usually costs more too.

So perhaps still good to distinguish between the coffee brewing methods here.

Espresso = 25-50ml of very dense / concentrated coffee. The brew method here involves pressure and very fine grind to get enough extracted in such a short brew. So, you need a specific machine. Doesn't matter if the machines are custom to Starbucks, the method and drink is called espresso.

Pour over / drip / filter coffee is a percolation method like espresso but with a much longer ratio, 1:16 roughly so you'd have for example 250ml of drink from 15 grams of ground coffee beans. This method does not involve pressure.

Now, if you just order a "coffee", in most countries at least in the "western" world you'd probably get a drip type mug of coffee. In Italy and perhaps Spain and Portugal you'll get an espresso. In Italy also in Starbucks, or at the very least they would ask to confirm. Elsewhere you might get something else, like in Turkey you'll get a something made with ibrik / cezve, though perhaps not in Starbucks

To answer the question, in my opinion, you'll get the closest match with any drip coffee machine coupled perhaps with a fairly good grinder. Espresso is something completely different.

This site, as exemplified by this thread, gives me what little faith I still have in humanity. Home-Barista, may you live long and never change!

Matt

Why not try Matt Perger's coffee shot to get something more like filter coffee from a BDB?

Lance Hedrick has a few YouTube videos on this topic.