Friday, January 15, 2016

History of Starbucks

The currently largest worldwide coffeehouse, Starbucks started as a small business back in time 1971. The three important people who initiated the coffeehouse were two teachers and a writer. An English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegel and writer Gordon Bowker were friends with Peet’s Coffee founder, Alfred Peet. They were inspired by Peet’s Coffee and Tea in Barkeley so the trio pooled together $8000 of their money plus loans to start up their coffee been venture[1].The name, Starbucks was taken from a shipmate in Herman Melville’s novel, Moby Dick. Meanwhile, the logo was initially a wood cut style image of two-tailed mermaid or siren[2] which has undergone many changes throughout the time from bare chests to more stylize and the hair covered her body. They did not come with the brewed coffee and espresso but focused on roasting coffee beans and coffee making equipment.
            Howard Schultz became the part of the team as head of marketing in 1982. He was attracted to Starbucks when he tasted Sumatra in 1981, his first walk into the store. When Schultz returned from Italy, his idea of serving espresso was against the founders so he went out and run his own business in 1985, II Giornale. Later when he earned enough money, he returned to Seattle to buy Starbucks from Baldwin and Bowker for $3.7 million. Howard Schultz’s goal was to expand Starbucks into numerous locations, spreading out from Seattle[3] so he consolidated II Gionarle with Starbucks and the brand went public in 1992. It opened stores in Japan and Singapores in 1996 so it became international. Starbucks is successfully expanding until now to more 17,000 stores in 55 countries around the worlds.

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