I am sort of a coffee expert since i drink a fair amount it and have for a long time. The strange thing about Starbucks coffee is that it has a real burned, tar like taste to it. Even their flavored coffee has that taste. What I think is happening is that Starbucks buys the cheapest beans and over-roasts them in order to cover up the cheap taste. I was once talking to a lady in a coffee shop and she said that she had heard that Starbucks don't wash their beans and that is the reason for that strong tar like taste. Of course the equipment to wash their millions of beans would cost Starbucks millions of dollars. I think that it is a combination of cheap bean and whatever else it takes to get the coffee out to the market the quickest. But Starbucks is a an industry with only profit in mind. Pure capitalism. I should say pure jewish capitalism since its owned by jews.