There's Just Something About Starbucks

I've never considered myself a coffee connoisseur, or even a coffee snob, but there are particular cafes & coffee shops that I prefer over others. Starbucks is one of my favorites. I love the fact that, no matter where I go, behind that big, green insignia with the smirking mermaid awaits a cup of steaming hot, high-caloric comfort.

Moving to Russia meant that I suffered serious coffee withdrawal, at least in the beginning. Six years ago, it was next to impossible to get a decent cup of coffee, unless you carried in a good supply from the states or had a more western European contact who produced it from some mysterious location. You certainly didn't go out for coffee in Vladimir, unless you were really wanting instant granules served in style.
When I relocated to Moscow, one of the perks was that coffee was more accessible, and definitely more drinkable. While tea is still the national hot beverage of Russia, coffee was and is gaining in popularity, which means that more & more coffee places are popping up, sometimes overnight. Just in front of my apartment building are two of the standard Moscow establishments - Shokoladnitsa, and Kofe Haus. Both serve a great cup of coffee, but I'm not enamored of either. A place to which I gravitated frequently in my early Moscow years - The Coffee Bean on Tverskaya - is my favorite Russian coffee house, but that's for another article.

If you're not up on international business news, then you might have missed the announcement regarding the recent opening of the very first Starbucks Coffee in Russia. It's taken more than 5 years for this company to set up shop over here - a long story about trademark infringement - but it's now up & running, and doing a great business from what I can tell. My friends & I made a pilgrimage to the flagship store here in Moscow, and it was a night to remember.

I'll spare you the tedious details about getting there (two hours in transit, one way) and the high price of refreshment (more than $10 for a large specialty drink). I will tell you that the two-and-a-half hours that we spent there were well worth any of the frustrations that we'd had in just getting to our destination. We ooohed & ahhhed over the comfy couches & chairs; we savored each sip of our designer beverages. By the time we left, I felt as though I'd had a mini-vacation. Why? Well, there's just something about Starbucks!