Clover goes Big Green
Yesterday, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz took the stage at their annual meeting announcing five new initiatives and -aping an Apple stevenote- a surprise “one more thing”… Starbucks has purchased Seattle’s Coffee Equipment Company, maker of the Clover. While the event (broadcast live on SBUX website) lacked the polish of Apple, you have to credit them for making some strides since ’05’s knee-deep in the mocha.
People have been asking me for my take on this so I thought it a good excuse to dust off my keyboard and crawl out from my self-imposed blogging exile. In short, I’m happy for Clover founders Zander Nosler and Randy Hulett and their dedicated crew who bravely took up a concept that was less than obvious and persisted to create a game changing product. Having it embraced by the green giant is a level of validation that would be hard to top.
Three years ago I had the privilege of being one of the first geeks to play with the Clover technology early in its development phase and I was honored to participate in its unveiling (including writing this exuberant post on the original victrola blog).
Unveiling of the Clover prototype at the Victrola speakeasy during Coffeefest Seattle ‘05. David Latourell becomes the first Clover barista during demo day at the Vic.
Since then I’ve witnessed many people go from absolute skepticism to embracing (and exploiting) the Clover. The Clover made it possible to give customers access to a breadth of coffee experiences (once typically confined to cupping labs) yet do so in a high-volume coffeebar environment. It opened the door to more coffee menu variety, vertical pricing, and contributed to a renewed appreciation for brewed coffee which had been eclipsed by espresso beverages in the hearts of many customers.
In many ways the Clover’s novelty as a technological gizmo and the mesmerizing theater of its rapid brewing process has come to overshadow the beans that go into it. Press reports tend to fixate on its $11k price tag, actually quite unremarkable when compared to the cost of myriad espresso machines, grinders, NSF approved refrigerators, dish sanitizers, and other less glamorous tools of the trade. An argument could be made that part of the value of owning a Clover has been that the machine differentiates a shop from chains like SBUX, but to my mind its time the narrative moved beyond “gee-whiz fancy high tech” and back to the bean. The premise and true promise of the Clover was always to highlight the coffee, and maybe this news takes us another step in that direction.
Were Howard Schultz to read some of the overly presumptuous grumblings of certain coffee “professionals” in the forums, I can only imagine him turning to Zander and saying “how’d you ever do business with these clowns?” Detractors aside, I’m sure the coming months will be a strange trip for the CoEqCo crew, but my hunch is that this was not a deal that they entered into lightly. Existing Clover customers will continue to have access to parts and support, but future availability of the machines is in doubt.
The sky isn’t falling so much as the ground is slowly rising. Whether or not Starbucks’ initiatives will manifest as any leap in quality in their cups remains to be seen (I’m skeptical), but their renewed effort on marketing coffee should be welcomed by small roasters. Schultz speculated in his presentation that some people might even be tempted to [gasp] start drinking coffee black, no sugar. If that’s the meme SBUX wants to push, I’m confident that it will be quality-focused microroasters that reap the most benefit over the long term.
Tags: coffee clover SBUX starbucks
March 20th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
Thanks for your insight, Tonx. I’m sure it wasn’t a decision made lightly; should be quite a trip to see where this takes all of us!
March 21st, 2008 at 1:07 am
Tony! So good to see you posting again!
But it took ***this*** to get you back into a groove? ;)
My unsolicited thoughts - The Clover, much like the Linea, will fail in the hands of inexperience at the Big Green. As Alistair is fond of pointing out, it takes serious dedication and attention to details to make the Clover sing. I just don’t think another “3 hours closure to train” is going to do it.
I don’t think this bodes well for the industry. I think instead it will backlash to places trying to make the Clover produce a good coffee (and imo, it requires a lot of trying, something many current owners still can’t pull off consistently). Clovers won’t be available for the Indies, and Starbucks’ mashing of the output product will diminish the perceived quality of Clover-output elsewhere.
I also predict current Clover owners will be getting the shaft in the not-so-distant future by Bux, when it comes to support or service.
March 21st, 2008 at 6:38 am
Hey, glad to see you back blogging. A friend who works at a local coffeeshop with a Clover said they were freaking out slightly yesterday because they and their regulars love the machine — and if it breaks, it’s unclear whether they could get it replaced. The company will keep servicing machines, but a total blowout? Unclear.
But my response was that if Clover has hit the big time, it’s likely that Clover competitors will start coming out of the woodwork. Clover has a barista’s barista mentality to it now — not meant to be derogatory, same as a comedian’s comedian — but with the machines in all Starbucks, other coffee engineers will come up with alternatives for independents and small chains.
Right?
March 21st, 2008 at 9:55 am
Mark -
I’m withholding any speculation about what this means in the long term to current Clover owners. Again, I trust that CoEqCo would not have done a deal that damns their existing customer base, though obviously SBUX does not have a good reputation for fair dealing with indies.
To your other point, the challenges for indies run a lot deeper than what consumer perception of their equipment is. Its not just that brewing on a clover takes finesse. I think the often disappointing clover experiences out there are merely indicative of the general disappointing output of many coffee roasters that enjoy reputations that have more to do with online cheerleading than their actual skill at delivering a great finished product. The clover merely revealed a fresh avenue for (a long absent) critique. Thats a rant for another day though, still a bit in the future.
March 21st, 2008 at 10:16 am
Glenn -
I wouldn’t hold my breath. Inevitably someone will put out something to try and capture the space, but even the big names in commercial coffee gear are essentially boutique operations - accustomed to making incremental innovations on long established designs, and the threat of patent suits (backed by SBUX) might be a big deterrent. It will take someone a considerable investment to go there. If this stuff were even half as easy as it looks, we’d have some decent espresso grinders by now. ;)
I think you’ll see some DIY alternatives appear… some people will screw around with fussy vacpots which deliver similar wow factor and potentially great brew, others will design better pour over solutions… and there remain some entirely unexplored options.
March 22nd, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Long time reader first time poster…
As an indie shop owner with a Clover- I was pretty surprised by the news. We serve Intelli coffee on ours and I have to say that the control the Clover has given us has greatly elevated our understanding of how the different brewing variables combine to produce different characteristics in the cup. For our baristas it was just as important as our upgrade from a HX espresso machine to a Synesso, which has given us a platform of stability upon which to further hone our craft.
We offered a press menu in our shop before the Clover, but found in the retail environment that 4-6 minutes wait time from ordering a coffee wasn’t acceptable to most customers. With the Clover, however, the gee-whiz factor of it entertained customers while we alternately talked about brewing technology and the coffee they were about to enjoy. As a former engineer, I have no issue talking about technology and quite frankly it’s fun to do. I am equally excited telling customers about direct trade or how a certain coffee is going to taste as it cools. In my opinion if the customers are focusing on the craft, science or the beans it’s infinitely better than serving “regular coffee”. You can’t cover everything in a single 60 second chat… people’s heads would explode.
I posted these thoughts on CG in the neverending Pittsburgh coffee bar thread the day I found out…
*If someone offered us a boatload of cash for our business- we would probably sell and then go out and either do this all again somewhere else or do something else we’re passionate about. Everyone has a price.
*We will not see new Clovers for sale much longer. If you want one beyond that you’ll have to get one of the first couple hundred “used” machines
*Parts will continue to be available (and I may stockpile some just to be safe) to existing Clover users
*Starbucks will continue to serve over-roasted carbon flavored coffee. We sell a fair amount of Intelli’s “El Diablo” from the Clover and it is pretty darned good, but it’s kind of like a gateway coffee to the single origins. We stand behind our coffee and how we’re preparing it and still feel that for the retail environment the Clover is the best way to present these wonderful coffees.
*Starbucks will not ruin customers for the Clover, just as they haven’t ruined customers for airpot brewers or even espresso drinks for that matter… they’ll just ruin their Clovers in how they misuse them.
*Another entrepreneurial type will come along with the next round of equipment and the whole process starts again.
*We will continue to tweak and play with ours, improve the quality of our techniques, and be a rarity in the area. Based on our returns ours will be paid off before the warranty is up.
March 28th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
FYI: Stumptown’s getting rid of Clovers entirely. Quote from Stumptown’s Matt Lounsbury: “We’ve never purchased parts or service from Starbucks in the past, and we’re not going to start now.”
March 29th, 2008 at 1:35 am
Well given the Clover is now in very short supply I reckon they ought to get a fairly good resale price. . .
April 12th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Hi Tony.
I’m with the others… it’s nice to have you back from exile.
And I am with you on the impact of this sale. There’s more than one way to differentiate yourself from Starbucks, and relying on a piece of equipment to do the job for you is kind of, well, Starbucksian.
On an another note, I have a well-founded but irrational dislike of Howard Schulz that stems from my rampant Seattle homerism. I don’t like being associated with his giant chain business, considering he is from New York, not Seattle. And I REALLY resent him selling the SuperSonics to an out-of-town concern. He came in with a lot of rhetoric about “restoring a winning tradition” and then drove the team into the ground and bailed when he wasn’t making a big enough profit (he made plenty on the sale, though). Leave my city alone, you jerk!
This has nothing to do with the Clover, except that he has related a story in public about trying Clovered coffee in New York and, unless he is making that up, I am almost positive he had that cup off a Clover that I installed at Grumpy.
April 18th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Hey brother, great website.
I’ve got a couple of bags of green Wailua peaberry and am looking for a profile to roast… any suggestions?