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Starbucks Installing $11,000 'Clover' Coffee Machine in Select Shops


In an effort to ruin everything good about coffee, Starbucks has bought out what many consider to be the greatest evolution in coffee since espresso, The Clover. "What's a Clover?" you might ask. Well, it's an $11,000 coffee brewing machine that controls the precise time, temperature, and amount of beans that go into an individually brewed cup of Joe. This machine's unique ability to replicate the exact same conditions that produced that last perfect cup of coffee mean that coffee aficionados can finally unlock the true potential of a bean, bringing out its fruit-like flavors and other subtle characteristics.

This machine has elevated coffee drinking (and price, which usually starts around $3 a cup) to the level of a wine tasting, and, until recently, it was only available in independent coffee shops. Now, Starbucks has bought The Coffee Equipment Company, and begun installing The Clover in select stores while refusing to sell any more machines to independent shops. It has also shutdown CloverNet, which is an online service setup by the company that allowed fans to track their favorite brews and find shops with a Clover machine.

Sadly, not even an $11,000 machine can make bad coffee taste better, but clearly Starbucks is desperate. This summer, it is closing 5-percent of its stores (just over 600) and is making an effort to focus less on music and high calorie milkshakes and more on coffee. You can bet that the original fans of The Clover won't be lining up at Starbucks anytime soon. But Starbucks is betting that the same people that order a white chocolate mocha with half skim and half soy will soon be ordering 35 grams of ethiopian sidamo at 210 degrees for 45 seconds, and paying a dollar more for it. [Source: Wired]

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