I’m a total coffee addict too I drink a pot a day, I consider starbucks more like a teenage ice cream shop though, their drip coffee is good, but I usually go to dunkin for their xtra large cups, but starbucks does light roast coffee which you can’t find anywhere and it’s like 30 cents more a cup so i’ll go there sometimes for that. If i do blow money on something like a latte I’ll go to starbucks. but i dont think ive been there in maybe 3 years? I used to get the beans back when I ground my own. Now i just stick to folgers and maxwell house, don’t even bother putting sugar in it anymore . Id never get beans or get a latte at mcdonalds, even though I go there just for their $1 any size coffee all the time.

However Starbucks also sells ice cream drinks that the teenagers love because they have caffeine and are more “adult” than a giant milkshake. So starbucks became a trendy place for suburban white teens to hangout, mostly just because it was one of only three stores in the whole town, but also because it was a legal drug for teens, so it became a cool place for teenage white girls to eat ice cream and hangout. Coffeeshops in europe have a whole long storied traditios of intellectuals, poets, and political history etc but not in America it’s just a burger joint that focuses on coffee, maybe there is some genuine cultural crossover there, but its mostly about selling ice cream to suburban teenage white girls