Take a look at this really great Starbucks coffee tasting educational book from 2004.  A store partner was cleaning out a back office and came across three items dating from about 2004, and this is the second in a series of blog articles featuring those 2004 coffee master materials.  The first blog post in this series is here:

^ That first blog post featuring 2004 coffee master material teaches coffee-related vocabulary.

This little tasting book goes through each coffee by region, and talks a little bit about those coffees.  The pages are fairly thick, and as you can see, it is spiral bound.  By the way, I recognize that the new coffee master training program, launched January 2011, is nothing like this.  The current coffee master journal is thick, and much more abstract with lots of growing region and roasting information and less information about each specific core Starbucks coffee.

Thank you to Molly at Seattle Custom Framing for taking the great photos.

***

And now let me explain the contest that goes with this.  It has been a while since I have done a big contest on the blog.  Still to this day, a large contest I did that related to beautiful barista chalkboard art is a favorite blog article of mine.

This contest is inspired by the Starbucks Passion blog‘s article asking for coffee pairing suggestions.  I am looking for your coffee pairing ideas, and there is no better time to talk about this than to coincide it with these coffee master materials from 2004.

HOW TO ENTER – Please follow ALL the instructions.  I really will ignore emails which I receive that have skipped any of the following instructions or rules.

In order to make the contest worthwhile and entice people to join in, the prizes will be two grand prize winners, each winning a $50.00 Starbucks gift card.  But there are a lot of rules!! Please read carefully!

  • 1. To enter, you must have an address in the United States, Canada, Ireland, or the UK.
  • 2. You must be over 18 years of age.
  • 3. You must submit your entry via email (Melody@StarbucksMelody.com) no later than May 17, 2011.
  • 4. Pick out a Starbucks coffee that you like.  Reserve coffee selections, Pike Place Special Reserve, and Tribute Blend and Three Region Blend and other “promotional” only coffees are not eligible.  Your coffee pairing should be able to be replicated and since most people do not have access to Reserve coffees, and certain other Starbucks coffees come and go quickly, they’re not eligible for this contest.
  • 5. Pair the coffee with a food.
  • 6. In no more than 250 words, describe why that coffee and food pair well together and why you enjoyed it.
  • 7. You must include a photograph (in jpg format) of your French press of coffee and food pairing.  If not a press, include your photo of how you brewed the coffee whether pour over, Chemex, filter drip brew, Clever, Clover, AeroPress or other brew method.
  • 8. I strongly recommend (not absolutely required) that you keep your pairing simple – You want someone else to be able to enjoy it too. If you describe Sumatra paired with your favorite home-made special recipe tomato soup, it’s going to be difficult for someone else to replicate that coffee pairing unless they’re making soup too!
  • 9. Please include your Twitter user name in entry. (If you have one. If you don’t have one, don’t worry about this).
  • 10. Please include in your entry a mailing address of where you would like your “prize” to be sent.  Please include your address even if you are sure that I have your address memorized already.
  • 11. Odds of winning are going to depend on the number of entries.
  • 12. Your entry constitutes permission for me to use your photo in the final blog post with all the winners.
  • 13. Like the beautiful barista chalkboard art contest, winners will be selected by me.  I understand this is subjective. That’s just the way it goes.
  • 14. Please share this blog post with others! 🙂  If you tweet this blog article, please include @Sbuxmel somewhere in the tweet to catch my attention.
  • 15. This contest is open to both customers and partners!
  • 16.  Void where prohibited.

I hope that in about one month I will have lots of food pairing ideas, some great images of French presses of coffee with food, and an entire blog post full of coffee pairing suggestions with lessons learned from our old coffee master materials! 😉  Feel free to browse through the photos below for more information about Starbucks coffees.  I realize that the line up has changed quite a bit since 2004.  The Colombia Narino Supremo and the Sulawesi coffees are now only available in limited international markets.  I believe that Arabia Mocha Java has been entirely discontinued.  There were too many images to include every single page of the coffee master book, but I included a lot of them below.