Drinking Starbucks for a Year!

Posted on: 2013-08-20 12:00 AM

 
What is your name and location… name and city would be ok.
Beautiful Existence in Seattle, WA
 
What a great idea.
Thanks!  I like to think my challenges are interesting to somebody besides me.  J
 
What inspired it?
I started mapping out multiple years of challenges after 2011’s Living the Goodwill Life ended and while designing the ideas for what/who I’d like to explore two things started to stand out… first was all the wonderful brands/companies/organizations that my home of the PNW (Pacific Northwest) has brought to the world so I decided to focus on local brands for awhile.  And the second thing that stood out was that I wanted to honor certain inspirational people in my life by exploring things/brands that were close to their hearts too, so my Starbucks challenge/idea came from my sister who has worked as a partner for over 7 years now. 
 
My mother inspired my first challenge year with Goodwill, and my sister inspired this Starbucks year.  I guess you can say that my challenges are almost like my ultimate show of appreciation to the people I love in a way.
 
Did you have any goals or purpose when you started this project?
My purpose for doing these challenges is pretty consistent… it really boils down to my purpose in life, which is to explore, question, and seek knowledge and understanding and always to try to find ways to have FUN!  The first and only goal I had beginning this challenge was to accomplish only eating/drinking Starbucks for an entire year, which is a bigger goal length-of-time than I’ve ever seen another challenger taking on, so that was a big enough goal for me to begin with.  And I’m happy to say that being over 7 months into this year I think I’m pretty safe to say that outside of something catastrophic happening… I’ll achieve my goal!
 
All other side-goals are either ones I only briefly thought about prior to this year (like how much money I will spend) or the little goals (like counting calories) that have come along as my year has progressed.  All these little goals add up to my experience every year and I try to only do minimal homework on a brand before I decide to take it on because half of the fun and adventure of my challenge is to discover everything along the way!  Every brand, every challenge has it’s own set of community members, ideas, questions, concerns… and if I embrace one or another too much before I start then it kind of defeats the purpose of exploring the brand to begin with.  I like to try and keep these years authentic in their uniqueness, including side goals or purposes that I find along the way.
 
Is Starbucks involved?
I was just asked this question again today.  No, Starbucks had no idea I was going to do this challenge before I announced it and neither will next year’s focus.  The brands involvement prior to the challenge kind of defeats the purpose of keeping it a real discovery as I go.  Starbucks has been really nice and has sort of brought me in as an “honorary partner” by inviting me to events and such, but I don’t want to infringe on their generosity and I like being the outsider of sorts… it keeps the challenge real.
 
There has been talk of me actually doing these challenges for brands in the near future, and of course if I come to an agreement with a company to do so I will change my scope a bit, but until that happens this is all my own design and I like to keep it minimal and kind of “covert” before I announce the next year’s focus.  Like I said… I believe it makes it more genuine and adventurous as I go throughout the experience knowing little to nothing about the brand, and them knowing little about me.
 
How is it going?
It is going GREAT!  I constantly cannot believe how many new items are being released this year… I couldn’t have chosen a better year to do this challenge that is for sure!
 
I look forward to new items that are constantly being released but I still have my regular favorite menu items too.  The one thing that I wish I could do this year that I didn’t plan for was to go abroad because after talking to Winter, the eating and drinking options are really varied all over the world and it would make this experience even better to showcase!  From just what I see over the international Starbucks media channels in Asia, India, and Europe and all over the world, the menu options (both drinks and food) have my mouth watering just looking at them!  It definitely would add to this experience in a significant way to go International.
 
What kind of feedback are you getting?
Well at first I got everything you can think of from an international audience.  I have had really bad, hurtful comments or people poking fun of me, but I have also immediately had supporters and lovers of coffee, tea, Starbucks or even other challenge-type people cheering me on!  So it was pretty up and down at the beginning but mostly it’s the community around this brand, the eating/drinking, coffee/tea communities that have been my closest companions on this trip so far.  The amazing amount of humans that adore anything having to do with food/drinks let alone coffee/tea is just mind blowing and overall they are very supportive and super nice!
 
I was a pretty typical American before this… I would buy a Starbucks maybe once a week, usually once every two or three weeks.  I barely ever touched tea, I tried to get coffee from local shops and support local business.  I was basically all over the place as a consumer.
 
But as I have gotten immersed in this world of “foodies” or of passionate people that love their coffee or tea, or Starbucks, or whatever they love having to do with food and drinks, boy… my world just opened up tremendously!  I knew about foodies, I knew about people that were passionate about food/drink but until you actually get brought into the fold… until you actually have conversation after Twitter, Facebook, Instagram conversation about what was in their favorite drink, how they prepared it, how they are reading the latest copy of a rouge beverage label start-up or their latest brewing class ingredients list, it’s not until THEN that it hits home just how much we humans LOVE these two basic essentials that bring us so much joy… eating and drinking!
 
I’m still very much a beginner when it comes to this foodie/beverage loving crowd… but I think another food/drink challenge at some point is necessary because it’s such a relevant and huge dynamic to millions of people in the world that is for sure!
 
As far as feedback from all these various areas of passionate coffee, tea, foodies world that I’m now apart of… it pretty much seems that the further I go in this years challenge, the more people are finding me and supporting me.  So that is always a nice thing to see because a year is a LONG TIME sometimes to do one thing, so encouragement is always appreciated! J
 
Do you frequent the same Starbucks locations? 
I do frequent the same locations usually on a day-to-day basis, but usually at least once a week I go into new areas, new stores in the PNW and try and vary my store visits.  Nothing ever on Winter’s scale… but that international component, boy I wish I could work that into my year, it would truly make this experience that much more richer for everybody’s reading let alone my experience!
 
Is there a “wanted” type poster in any of the Starbucks to let the baristas know that you’re a fan and deserve special treatment? Just kidding… but is there?
Ha-ha… I don’t think so?  But, I have left a poster with some locations around here at the beginning to let them know who I am and that my challenge is why I’m always going to be there for the next 365.  But that would be funny if there is a “wanted” sign like that, let me know if you see it okay?  I’ll Instagram it! J
 
Do you have any statistics on how many different Starbucks you’ve visited?
Well, my challenge isn’t about all the different Starbucks I’ve visited, that is definitely owned by Winter.  But I do save all my receipts, so there is a lot of information I can pull from them if ever anybody wants me to do so.  At this point it’s pretty much most of the Seattle area stores I go to but until I get a San Francisco trip in, or my upcoming trip to Colorado, I might not get that many more stores into my year.
 
You have some great photo’s can you share some of your favorites with us?
Thanks for thinking so!  Well, honestly, any photo I get from other Starbucks partners or fans are always MY favorites!  I am a photographer at heart, so I know what images I like to shoot but when I get ideas for images, or an Instagramed image from a fan or something somebody else did (even the Starbucks advertisements are pretty great sometimes!) that’s when I feel it’s special.  Because that is somebody else sharing their Starbucks experience with me, and I’m just so honored that they would think to share it. 
 
An Instagram follower in Eastern Washington (The Humanitarian31) Sergio, shared a photo of him and his fellow groomsmen sharing Starbucks refreshers before his friends big moment.  They are all so happy in the photo, so engaged into their fun moment in life with their Starbucks in everybody’s hand… it was such a special photo to share with me and I was honored to be apart of their moment, even if I was a half a state away… and all because of Starbucks!
 
That right there, the sharing of humanity together no matter what your common bond (or brand) is… that is what makes life so amazing day after day.  And I get a LOT of these moments just because of this (and my other) challenges… it really makes me feel lucky!
 
You have to have some great stories…please share a memorable moment with us.
OMGosh, there are so many already!  When Dylan (from The 5 Awesome Baristas) visited last month he joked about how I should write a book about this year after listening to my stories during our all-day Starbucks tourist-trip.  Well, I thought he was joking until the comments about writing a book kept coming up with multiple people.
 
So to answer your question, I haven’t thought about writing down these stories too much yet.  I live this experience day after day and just try and provide interesting and somewhat meaningful content on the blog, my social media feeds… but now that it keeps coming up I’m thinking about the last 7 months and watching for those times that I should be writing things down for a possible future book deal?!
 
While I do have many of these “sharing” type moments (like the one with Sergio I mentioned above) I do have some “insider” type moments too.  But because I’m not a person that likes to share negative things, I’ve just been keeping those kind of things to myself mostly and focusing on the good things all around me.  So, I’ll share one that just happened this morning via Twitter.
 
I had a lady (Marzi) tag me in Twitter so I went to her feed to see what she wrote and I found some interesting comments about Starbucks iced tea so I proceeded to ask her more questions.  Then she starts sharing with me images and videos and a whole story about how she found a little baby deer years ago and started to tend to this animal.  One of the things she learned along the way is that the deer liked to drink from her cups, and sip from her Starbucks straws?!  And then I get these cute little videos of the baby deer drinking from a Starbucks straw.  It was different, but incredibly sweet how Marzi shared this Starbucks moment in her life between this beautiful animal, her love for caring for it and of course Starbucks with me.
 
Like I said before… these stories, these shares, these moments during my yearly challenges are what life is about and what make me feel so lucky to be apart of!
 
Have you done anything like this before?
Yes, this is my third challenge year but not ever a food/drink challenge before this… but it will not be my last, there is just too much to explore with food/drink to make it my last challenge of this type.
 
We would be happy to help people follow your adventures. If you provide us with updates and or photos we will happily share them with our visitors.
 
Thanks!  I would love for others to know about this adventure for sure BUT, like I mentioned above… this adventure is much more about the communities and people that are super passionate (or maybe even beginners like me) about coffee, tea, Starbucks or eating/drinking… so if anybody wants to share their experiences with me I would LOVE to know, see, hear about them!
 
I know your site is about coffee and believe me my education on the topic is just beginning 7 months into my challenge.  But to me this entire experience of what we call life is like a cup of coffee, it always seems better when it’s shared with others… so thank you for asking me to be apart of your community too, I will keep you all updated on I’m sure an interesting last 5 months for sure. 
 
Cheers to coffee… one bean, story or cup at a time and as long as it’s shared!

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