The Culture within Starbucks: A Reflection of Human Interaction

In our society, we can see many different kinds of social setting and one of the most common settings is coffee shop. Indeed, there is at least one coffee shop on each block. According to Coffee Association of Canada, the market size of coffee industry in Canada is more than 6.2 billion dollars. It shows that how big and important this social setting is. Among a lot of coffee shops, Starbucks, Tim Horton, and Second Cup are the biggest and the most popular franchisers in Canada. If the purpose of visiting coffee shop is only for coffee itself, they might have not been grown like these days.

A coffee shop is a perfect place to study social construction in our society. For one, a plethora of different people go in and out of such shops. And they do so for a variety of reasons. Because of this, coffee shops truly encapsulate America. Our group aimed to capture the workings of society using the four classic anthropological methods. Sikander Chohan, who authored the biological anthropology section, focused on how physical factors of human beings affected the Tim Hortons he studied. Our linguist specialist, Chris Josebalan, focused on how nonverbal communication, vocal vocabulary, and gender speech contrasts were factors in the everyday workings of the Coffee Beanery Café he studied. Our two cultural specialists, Noah Smith and Ashley Hamblin, studied people's reasonings, gender construction, and the effect of groups. Owen Ekblad, our archaeology specialist, studied at two locations of the local coffee shop chain called Sweetwaters. The two locations he visited, in Ann Arbor and Canton, were representative of a wider variety of human influence and behavior. All in all, our group aimed to make observations that would give us an insight into social construction in coffee shops.

My observations of human behavior were made at Starbucks on Grand avenue, New York near Elmhurst. I chose this location due to the high customer traffic that it sees. Since it is a popular coffee shop, the customer base cuts across different multicultural sector of the population. There is a lot of variety in the backgrounds and personalities of the people visiting the shop. This quality makes any patterns that are recognized more representative of the general public.

For my ethnography project, I decided to observe the Starbucks on Rockside Road in Independence, Ohio. My plan was to observe the subculture of Starbucks’ customers. A subculture is defined as a “structured social inequality or, more specifically, systematic inequalities between groups of people that arise as intended or unintended consequences of social processes and relationships.” My question was twofold. Does Starbucks appeal to certain social statuses? And if so, does Starbucks serve as another example of social inequality?

I set out to find a place to begin my observations, not knowing what to fully expect, what I may find. So I decided to look around at what is close to my home that isn’t a place I frequent or have even visited at all. Then it came to me, the Starbucks that is only about a mile away is a perfect place for me to observe subjects that I would consider different from myself, seeing as how I consider such obscene prices for coffee ridiculous. Starbucks is a very popular chain of coffee vendors that describe their product as more about quality than what Americans are used to in typical coffee joints.

I chose to do the Starbucks Ethnography over all of the other options because Starbucks currently plays a large role in the social behaviors of today’s society. It has grown significantly from when it was first founded and is currently dominating the coffee market worldwide. Starbucks has become a social and cultural phenomenon because, “...it is at once a globalized consumer institution and a local place in which the mundane daily activities of sipping coffee, writing in journals, and conversing with friends are practiced” (Dickinson 7). Since I am in the age group that Starbucks is particularly trendy with (young adults), I already have some expectations for what the results of the ethnography will be. I have also lived in Orange County for my entire life, so I had some context as to which race would be more prevalent to the Starbucks I had gone to. I wish to explore the symbolic anthropology, which, “...focuses on understanding cultures by discovering and analyzing the symbols that are most important to their members” (Nanda 35). Understanding the symbolism behind coffee and Starbucks is important since it has multiple meanings and has become deeply ingrained within our culture.

Starbucks with its inspired high selling coffee bean has been very popular in the American Culture over the years. I decided to observe Starbucks due to its popularity all over campus, although it has not been a fan of mine. I found it very pleasant and relaxing during my time there. I noticed more intimate interactions between workers when there were little or no customers and fewer interactions between workers when the place was crowded.

Patrons like myself stood in line scanning the café for empty tables and available seats. The arrangement of the tables in this area allowed for more seating flexibility and appeared to lower social boundaries between customers while encouraging interaction between members of cliques and individual patrons. Armed with my laptop and cappuccino, my observations occurred from an empty table in the center of the café.

Seeing all the taxis bustling by becomes overwhelming in a place unknown to me. Experiencing California first hand in Starbucks made me realize my dreams were possible. One day, my sister and I stopped by the Starbucks right across from our hotel. When I entered, I felt right at home. I ordered a sandwich and salt and vinegar potato chips along with a drink. When I picked up my strawberry drink, it’s cold to the touch. I can feel the evaporation from the cold drink seeping through the clear plastic cup. I take a sip and the creamy liquid soothes my throat on this very hot day. While I’m eating, I hear the baristas taking orders from customers. All around me there are people sitting on chairs reading the newspaper, hanging around with friends and family or just chilling doing work on their computers. The atmosphere of Starbucks is so light and fun to be in. As I’m sitting, the breeze blows by calming my soul. It’s days like these that I cherish the small things in life like visiting California. The culture in California is different than any state I’ve visited before.

Different local reactions of new coming Starbucks from Shanghai and Bloomington reveal contradicting cultural understanding.

One of my favorite places in Shelbyville where many people live. They particularly like hiding myself in the new Starbucks shop for relaxation, tasting a cup of perfumed coffee, especially in winter. One day in this cold season, the stiffness in the air shakes my body. They try to run into the coffee shops but their body was so tight that they couldn't move easily. They opened the door. The warm air in the shop treated people like VIP, massaging my leg and my blood started their cycle again finally. The warm air welcomed them with a coffee smell, mixing the smell of chocolate and cakes. Many people need a good way to get started in their day whether it’s coffee, breakfast, vigorous exercise, or perhaps walking their dog.

A life without social interactions is not considered a healthy life. Everyone needs people that they can social with in their lives; family members, friends, colleagues etc… Each one of them holds a special part in their hearts. Coffee shops are a great environment to interact with people and meet new ones, and a lot can happen over a cup of coffee. The perfect cup of coffee for this writer is to be surrounded by three great individuals, Kevin Hart, Dalai Lama, and Oprah.

When I arrived, the Starbucks looked as busy as usual. It wasn’t filled to the brim with a line, nor was it completely empty. There were also a few seats left open (allowing me to sit in a good spot). Profiling people here was awkward due to the inconsistencies in coming in. Sometimes, people came inside in droves, which made it hard for me to keep track of everyone. However, from 12:15 to 12:22 nobody came in. It was during this slump that the employees took time to talk to each other, talking about Zoe Gomez (Selena Gomez’s sister) among other topics. A majority of the people were Caucasian, although barely (twelve out of twenty-two people), and male. 72.7% of people bought cold drinks, probably owing to the fact that it was extremely hot outside. Also, the average age was 29.54 and people often came in very casual clothes, perhaps owing to the fact that I came on Independence Day.

The context change in form that Starbucks found itself competing with smaller chains that resembled its former pre-expansion model with competitors focusing in creating symbolic-expressive value and fast food restaurants that had started to offer specialty coffee with more aggressive advertisement at a lower cost. The competitive context changed for Starbucks because it’s focus in mass distribution channels and its retail footprint strategy stated its product within a standard performance product value; this affected the value perception of the product.

Starbucks used many tactics to reduce its distance from foreign markets. Firstly, Starbucks conducted extensive research in each country. They used focus groups, and quantitative analysis, to evaluate local cultural sensitivities and preferences. But it also used specific local adaptations. For