Which of the 3B’s: Bucks, Bean, or Bene?
Story by Kaylen Ko, Kirsten Huh, Angela Kim
Edited by Jeffrey Kim
Design by Helaine Lee
Edited by Jeffrey Kim
Design by Helaine Lee
Many people in Korea enjoy drinking coffee. The variety of coffee stores often range from mass-marketed franchises to the less famous, individual stores. Starbucks Coffee is well-known in Korea as the coffee brand of choice for Korean teenagers, Millennials and adults alike. As the largest coffee franchise in the world, Starbucks has nearly 18,000 stores in 60 countries, including Korea. However, coffee brands like Starbucks are well known for their extremely high prices - especially in Korea. Not only does Starbucks cost twice as much on average in Korea compared to the United States, its coffee - priced at more than four dollars - is far more expensive than brands like Tom n Toms, Ediya, and Angel-in-us Coffee.
One of the reasons for this phenomenon is that many people who drink coffee choose it for the brand label over the quality of coffee. To most ordinary people, coffee from different brands taste similar to each other. However, only some brands, like Starbucks, have the prestige and social status that is associated with a good cup of coffee. How are brands like Starbucks so popular if you can buy similar coffee from other shops? Are brands like Starbucks really different from others? We interviewed both classmates and teachers in SIS and asked them what their favorite coffee brand was. The majority of the people interviewed chose Starbucks as their favorite over both Coffee Bean and Caffe Bene. To test whether Starbucks really deserves its reputation for good coffee, we ran a blind taste test to the people who we interviewed. Similar coffee from Starbucks, Caffe Bene, and Coffee Bean were put into clear glasses and given to participants, who chose the best tasting coffee out of the three. The majority of participants chose Coffee Bean, which received four out of six votes; Starbucks received two votes; and Caffe Bene received last place with zero votes. Our conclusion is that many coffee drinkers in Korea in fact choose their coffee based on brand quality and marketing, two areas Starbucks excels in, even when they enjoy quality coffee from other brands - such as Coffee Bean - based on taste. Perhaps coffee drinkers should think about the quality of the coffee served more than they consider advertising slogans. |
Caffe bene is a Korean coffeehouse chain
Photograph by Angela Kim (8) Starbucks is the most popular global coffee company and coffeehouse chain
Photograph by Angela Kim (8) The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is one of the biggest coffee chain brands in the world Photograph by Angela Kim (8)
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