“Fast” Starbucks vs. “Slow” Italian Coffee
When you travel around the world, for every country you have been to, you can easily see the existence of Starbucks on the streets, and the green logo becomes one thing that is most familiar to you when you enter a new country. Till now, Starbucks has become a globalized brand that is popular in almost every country, but you can barely see the green logo in Italy, and it took Starbucks more than thirty years to settle the first Starbucks down in Italy. This astonishing fact is simply because of Italian own coffee culture which is fundamentally opposed to Starbucks, and their purposes are different, so Italy is rejecting the fast-food culture by rejecting Starbucks.
Italian coffee, which had a long history over centuries, is deeply embedded in Italian people’s daily lives, so there is at least one bar where Italians drink coffee on every street. Also, for every workplace and school, there are usually automatic coffee machines for people’s convenience, so Italian people will never be worried about the lack of coffee in their lives. Therefore, because the local market for coffee is so saturated, Starbucks could not take any advantage when it entered Italy compared to other countries, and it did not have any competitiveness. However, it could be the reason that Starbucks is unpopular in Italy, but it does not explain why it is rejected. The most obvious difference between Italian coffee and Starbucks is their tastes. Although Starbucks coffee is modified on the basis of Italian coffee, Italian people consider Starbucks coffee not authentic and too light, and Starbucks coffee with milk and sugar is just a coffee drink because too much milk and sugar covered the original rich taste of coffee beans. Hence, simply from the aspects of coffee, Italian choose their own bars rather than Starbucks.
Also, most Italians drink at least two cups of coffee every day, and prices become a considerable factor. While the price of Starbucks is several times higher than Italian coffee, if Italian people continue their drinking habits but using Starbucks coffee instead, two cups of Starbucks every day will become a financial burden on some of them, so Italian coffee seems to be a more rational choice.
Looking beyond the obvious, there are more reasons for Italian to refuse Starbucks which are strictly tied with Italian coffee culture. There are usually three types of coffee sold in coffee bars, and the first is called caffè, which is what we generally call espresso. Espresso is usually drunk during two lunch breaks and after meals. In the cases of lunch breaks, espresso provides energy for people, and they are able to fresh their minds within a few minutes and continue to work. Espresso after a meal plays a role in digestion because most of the meals will be meat-based, so drinking a cup of coffee will relieve the greasiness of meals and help digestion. The second type is the cappuccino, which is basically espresso with milk and milk froth, and Italians generally only drink cappuccino at breakfast with a croissant, an authentic Italian breakfast. In addition, latte macchiato with similar size to the cappuccino but has more milk, is usually drunk during a more leisurely lunch break, sitting at the cafe table.
Furthermore, the most significant conflict is between the cultural values of Starbucks and Italian coffee. Specifically, coffee culture represents the Italian slow pace of life, in which people take a few minutes of break to finish their coffee and continue on their work. People stand at the bar to drink their coffee, and maybe chat with the bar owner or other consumers in the bar, but once they finish their coffee, they will no longer stay for any reason. There are no specific requirements for the environment, and sometimes the bar is pretty noisy. The entire process is “step by step” and the purpose of it focuses on the coffee, and Italian clearly separates drinking coffee and working or studying. Hence, the rejection of Starbucks is predictable because of Italian’s ways of living. Italians are famous for knowing how to enjoy their life, and living in a world where everything is going so fast, Italian’s slow pace of life stood out against the fast living in the 1980s with the slow food movement (Bullaro). They view fast food, which contains Starbucks, as a symbol of chaotic and unhealthy life in which people put too much stress on themselves under the rapid speed of ongoing life. Therefore, slow living helps people to put away their worries, and enjoy things around them, and coffee is one of them. When drinking coffee, Italian people only focus on the coffee and enjoy the rich tastes of coffee, and in this case, working or studying is a distraction of their enjoyment.
However, Starbucks is still a typical commercial brand in which you order what you want and the conversation between you and the waiter ends. Unlike the small size of Italian coffee, Starbucks coffee has a much greater capacity, even the “medium” size. Then, the choice leaves to you whether you want to take it with you or sitting down and starting to do your work. In the later circumstance, the purpose of coming to Starbucks is not drinking coffee, but finding a silent place with free wifi where they can work on their own and spend some time. Starbucks’ coffee culture sees coffee as a part of our lives at all times: we can take the cup with us to walk on the street or go to work. The operating model of Starbucks illustrates its fast culture since it helps people to continue the fast pace of their lives, and people would not stop their feet for a single cup of coffee. Hence, refusing Starbucks for Italian also demonstrates their rejection of the fast-food culture as Izw says “The coffee experience for Italians is much more personal and intimate than what any Starbucks store would be able to offer. It is about “slow food” as opposed to the American “fast food”.”
The founder of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, brought some new changes to the first Starbucks in Italy, but still left the differences between coffees and operating modes. He developed the project by collaborating with Princi, “an Italian restaurant renowned for its bakery,” and redesigning the green areas(Anukriti Aditya Maaharay), which might be effective since there was a long line of people waiting in the opening days. However, you would hardly not see elders or middle-aged people in this line but mostly the younger generations who have known Starbucks before and wanted to try themselves(Ancos, Katty, & Ancos, 2019), which illustrates people’s favor to countries such as the U.S., and they want to be closer to these countries by purchasing their products.
Starbucks is a perfect product of globalization and its entering Italy represents the invading of globalization. Although it might bring fresh ideas to Italy, the power imbalance between the U.S. and Italy is still threatening Italy which the adoption of Starbucks must take away some Italian coffee culture. Even though most Italians firmly refuse Starbucks and their coffee culture are deeply rooted, the youths who are open to globalization is accepting it, and maybe Starbucks will be completely accepted in Italy one day under the attack of the general trend, which means that Italian original coffee culture will experience a huge loss, and fast foods become the mainstream of people’s choices. At that time, the surviving spaces for Italian coffee bars will be shrunk dramatically, which absolutely is a huge strike for middle-class people and also damage on the Italian economy. As a result, there will never be an exact equal balance between globalization and the cultures of small nations, and these nations will have to yield a step for it.
Ancos, Katty, & Ancos, A. (2019, November 11). Starbucks in Italy. Retrieved March 09, 2021, from https://www.lifeinitaly.com/lifestyle/starbucks-in-italy/
Anukriti Aditya Maaharay. (n.d.). STARBUCKS in ITALY: A different perspective. Retrieved March 08, 2021, from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/starbucks-italy-different-perspective-anukriti-maaharay
Grace Russo Bullaro. (n.d.). Slow food and slow life: Are you ready for life in the slow lane? Retrieved March 08, 2021, from https://www.lavocedinewyork.com/en/lifestyles/2019/01/23/slow-food-and-slow-life-are-you-ready-for-life-in-the-slow-lane/
Izw, A. (2007, June 13). Why Starbucks is not present in Italy? Retrieved March 03, 2021, from http://innovationzen.com/blog/2007/01/15/why-starbucks-is-not-present-in-italy/
