Call these Starbucks flashcards your beginning coffee education, if you will. This deck of cards was produced in 2004 as part of coffee education tools for new partners wanting to describe words like “clean” and “citrusy” as they relate to Starbucks coffees. I actually have 3 separate pieces that date from this 2004 era of coffee education, and they all appear to tie together. This is a great starting place: these are the words of coffee.
The flashcards are self explanatory. On one side is a word, such as “full-bodied,” and on the other side of the card is a definition, as well as two example coffees which fit this description. I really love everything about these flashcards. The words have clear descriptions, and I love the old coffee stamp images on each of the cards. There are a total of twenty flashcards in the box, and below are pictures of just a few of the cards.
I received this deck of cards as a gift from a partner who happened to be cleaning out a desk, and found these buried in a back office. She explained to me that it wasn’t likely she was going to be using them again: The whole bean coffee offerings have changed dramatically since 2004, and these are now out of date coffee education materials. As I mentioned, this was one of three pieces that tied together, though it might be a while before I post all three coffee education pieces.
Thank you to Molly at Seattle Custom Framing for taking the pictures in this blog post.
By the way, since we are on the topic of coffee education, I thought I would mention a YouTube channel that I enjoy: Five Awesome Baristas. That channel is a series of video produced by five Starbucks partners on a variety of topics. Not every video produced involves coffee education, but there are a ton of fun and very genuine videos all about coffee passion.
Enjoy the cards! What do you think? This is an open thread: feel free to talk about anything related to Starbucks!
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These are nice! A very cool idea on helping new partners getting the knowledge of Starbucks coffees.
I wonder if there is a better way today to train new partners because these card don’t exist any longer. Are there any standard training tools for partners used in any Starbucks on the globe, or does it depend on the country/store etc?
Officially starting my work as a partner on April 15 with a 2 weeks education training…very interested how they’ll teach me. 😀
Sebastian good luck with your new job. I too enjoyed seeing how training was done and I know from then to now the training is so different. I often see new partners being trained at my local SB and I wish the training of old was implemented. Perhaps, it would be nice to have customers contribute a point or two re training from the customer’s viewpoint.
@Sebastian – I think when you start as a barista, the first emphasis is learning drink recipes and how to write drink. I don’t know since I’ve never been a partner, but that is my gut. I’ve seen newbies at my local store playing a game with dice which teaches them how to write drinks on cups. I love the dice! One has tall grande venti on it, and the other has things like add shot, and modifiers. You roll the dice and you end up with drinks combos.
Good luck Sebastian on being a partner! I hope you enjoy it. You’re going to rock!
Hey Melody,
Love your blog posts!
I’m a shift, and believe it or not, first emphasis is on customer service! Learning drinks are important, but there are lots of tools, flash cards, recipe cards, etc and fellow partners that can help you learn to make drinks.
It’s that customer service piece that’s super important to learn off the bat! Knowing how to make the drinks won’t help you with a difficult situation, but knowing how to treat our customers right always will!
These are very ccol cards…..which actually sadden me in a way…. so much has been lost, no matter how H.S. feels about it. (reading it now…Onward)
I know they have the ‘passport’ books (from 2009, it says on the back) at my store….they gave them at out at a RARE tasting a yr or so ago. They’re very informative, and should be available to anyone really interested in coffee.
On the subject if H.S….just got an ‘invite’ via “rewards’ that he (H.S.) will be speaking on 4/12 at Columbia College (arts-y) downtown Chicago. For $69. you get a seat and a signed copy of “Onward”. ???? we’ll see.
Eva- I agree that customer service is the absolute essential ingredient to a happy experience at SB. I would rather have a partner redo my drink than walk away from the store after having a rude or grumpy partner. Customer service has to be constantly infused into a partner’s training so not only will the partner feel happy but obviously so will the customer. Less stress on both sides.
These flashcards were part of the old Coffee Master training kit.
All of this information is in our coffee passports now. Marking/calling drinks is one of the last things you learn. First is about coffee, where/how it’s grown, etc, and then customer service.
@RachelWeech and @Eva – Wait. It does make sense that customer service skills should be very first. What is the very first part of barista training? Also, I recognize that these flash cards are antiquated because there is SO much information in the new coffee master journals, but still, they are really cool, fun, easy learning tool to associate coffees with descriptors. I like them!
These are awesome! I wish i hd a tea and coffee set to help me describe new flavors i find when trying things 🙂 too bad they aren’t around anymore.
These are great! What a fun way to get trained! Also, the dice sound like fun. At my job, I spent several hours in front of a computer screen watching videos on how to do my job. It was monumentally boring and totally useless as I’d already learned it all in hands-on training. Way to go, Starbucks, for coming up with a more creative way to teach your employees!
These cards are great, Melody! Fun and informative! And from reading some of the word discriptions, I’d say I’m a “caramelly” type of girl 😀 (Thinking of using this word often now. haha)
@Sarah, I love your avatar pic!
Let’s be clear: If you want to know something, then go find out. Most likely there is a nice manual written by the Coffee Department or Global Learning available on the Retail Store Portal. Also, using your global username and password it is possible to look at manuals even at home.
@Kaori – I think you should use gravatar.com and get yourself an avatar pic too! @BostonStarbucksRebel – There are also ways for partners to email the Starbucks coffee department if they have burning questions.
Thanks for the Five Awesome Barista shout-out Melody!!!
Really appreciate it!!! =D
Great find, Melody! I think coffee education is one area where Starbucks can do more, and I think things like this are a fun, subtle way to do it and get people enthused about coffee.
Order of importance at sbux
1. Pandering to customers
2. cleaning
3. selling via
4. selling tribute
5. selling flavored via
6. selling tribute via
7. brewing coffee
8. beverage quality
@me: wow. I believe you but, what an outlook 🙁 “pandering”???
I was just talking coffee in a few free moments with a 4 month partner and she said she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be smelling from a certain coffee so I pulled out the Aroma box. I was unaware that in her fast track training that she had never been shown this tool before. It’s a box of the same outer design so I’m guessing from the same training at the time. It contains bottles of “earthy”, “berry”, “smoky” and so on as a tool to help understand what various coffees give as aroma. I’ll tweet you a picture of it when I get to work tomorrow.
Denise R, I think Howard is going to be doing a tour to promote the book a little bit. I might be wrong, but I remember seeing some information this morning on our store portal that he will be going to 19 cities? Don’t quote me on that though! Howard will also be in Chicago on April 11th for a partner event that I’m lucky enough to be able to attend. Although it will be a long day of driving for me, I can’t wait!!
@Robyn: thanx for your response. I’ve heard the same as you. I actually did get tickets to the 4/12 event…am going with another Sbux-loving friend. Your partner event should be great!
I just told a couple of the baristas about the 4/12th event at my place this morn. and they hadn’t heard anything about it. Just then the manager came out, and when they questioned him, he said he just got the email, and was going to tell them. I would assume that means they certainly aren’t going to any partner event on 4/11…or maybe even know about it.
I also heard he (H.S.) will be a part of an event out at WillowCreek here, a 2 day event in August I think. But, unlike the April thing, there’s alot of speculation that he may just be ‘skyped’ in at that event. (or some such other method….not in person)
Looking forward to the 4/12 morning…. it’ll be an early morning for me for sure. It starts at 8:30, I’ll be going down on a commuter train (that’s about an hr) and then either fast walking or maybe a taxi BUT, no assigned seating….so, first come. It’ll be a very early day.
Those cards are very cool! Definitely something to hold onto! Just found your website, will have to share with my friend who practically LIVES at Starbucks!
@Renee – Welcome to the blog! Glad you like. Hope you’ll click the “like” button on the Facebook page too.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/StarbucksMelody/180068562003180
This site is a small community of Starbucks enthusiasts (albeit, growing slowly) and so I hope you’ll come back and join in the comments again. I too really love the cards. I can see baristas having some fun playing around with them in the stores, quizzing each other with them! Of course, they are out of date since the whole bean menu has changed so much, but they’re still fun cards!
Ha. Ok, probably too harsh a word. But the intent of my post stands. Beverage quality is very low on the list of priorities. I get a well-made cap or macchiatto–honestly–about 10% of the time. Few know what they’re doing and many have so many other priorities on their plate that they don’t care.
Aside: I do enjoy the blog, Melody. I visit often. I just wish you could be a bit more critical at times. You’ve been around Starbucks a long time; surely you have seen some changes that you don’t approve of. (i.e. beverage quality, beans on the shelves for 3/4 of a year, lack of coverage, etc)
@me – I’m very sorry to hear that the store you go to doesn’t appear to care about beverage quality. At our store, even though it’s important to meet sales targets (VIA, Tribute, etc), that all comes after things like customer satisfaction, beverage quality, environment, etc. I would certainly contact Starbucks customer service about that particular store. I’ve done it myself as a partner when I’ve received consistently poor service at a store.
Actually…the store I WORK at cares a lot about beverage quality (which is almost exclusively in the milk aeration). Most of the employees take pride in well-steamed milk. And it shows. I’m talking about the multitude of other stores that I’ve been to in my area, in other states, in other countries, etc. It’s pathetic.
@me – I agree on the beverage quality. I take a great deal of pride in my steamed milk, and I have been known to start over if I don’t like it.
I actually had a super fast training period because I came in with prior experience from a BN cafe. I had already been trained to the expected service standards, and came in knowing all of the recipes except the new frappucinos. So I can’t really speak to the current training module.
However, I do wish that I had been given more one-on-one training regarding the beans – they weren’t a priority at BN and so I didn’t know as much. Granted, I have all the information in my passport, but the teacher in me knows that not everyone can learn by reading… and also that not everyone is motivated to read on their own.
What a neat tool those cards are, though!
The cards are amazing! I live the interesting finds in cleaning out workspace…
As to beverage quality and individual stores… I live in an area with several stores nearby. My oldest caught knows where every Starbucks from eastern Arizona to San Diego is. There was a young woman – new partner – we called her Luna… She was incredibly sweet, not overly chatty but she could just not get our drinks right. Fortunately that store has a great manager.
I’m very happy to call the corporate office to praise a store that foes a great job one day or a consistently great job. I’ll also call to let them know when service isn’t up to par.
They just can’t see in every window. As a customer I can share with them and improve my experience.
Thanks for sharing the cool find, Melody!
@Kitenarie and @Coolwatyr – Thanks! I think these are a neat find too. This is one of those blog posts that really makes me smile because the cards are so fun. Now if only there were a great Starbucks game. 😉
I owe a ton of people comment replies in this thread and others, but I at least wanted to wave “hi” to you here!