Something beautiful & more flavorful is brewing at Starbucks

Last May, Starbucks opened its first Starbucks Reserve store on Tomas Morato, offering customers a special opportunity to experience some of the most sophisticated coffees the world has to offer — rare, exotic and exquisite coffees.

Starbucks’ coffee buyers travel the world to look for the finest and rare coffees, and they are able to discover exceptional coffees in limited flavors, which are being offered at Starbucks Reserve stores.

Though all Starbucks stores have a cozy and friendly atmosphere, I find a different ambience and feel in the Reserve stores.  I find it to be more personal and more relaxing for me.  They serve all the drinks and food items similar to the other Starbucks Stores, but they carry a few food items not found in the others. 

Only Coffee Masters are allowed to serve in a Starbucks Reserve store.  It’s an eight-week process and done through study in in-store process, after which they have to pass a test — hence, the Black Apron. 

The Starbucks in Robinsons Signa Designer Residences that opened last Sept. 16 is a  beautiful store with a six-meter-high ceiling, says my brother  Quito Lopez, store development manager for Starbucks. Budji Layug, Royal Pineda and Kenneth Cobonpue designed the building, which is located on the corner of Valero and Rufino streets in Makati.

With this beautiful store, Starbucks introduces the Clover Brewing System.

The Clover Brewing System is a coffee brewing system that uses innovative Vacuum-Press technology to create your cup right in front of you and it will bring out the best flavor of the coffee. You will be able to watch how it works and see as the stainless-steel filter lowers into the brew chamber and hot water is added at a precise temperature to brew your coffee for an ideal length of time. The Clover Brewing System controls brew time and temperature digitally, as even small changes here can dramatically affect the outcome you taste in your cup. A thermal blanket surrounds the brew chamber to keep water within one degree Fahrenheit of the ideal temperature. After the coffee brews, it is pulled through a 70-micron filter. The resulting grounds are pushed out of the top of the machine. The coffee itself flows into your cup —hot, aromatic and amazingly flavorful,  truly the finest cup of coffee you’ve ever tasted.

The  more traditional French coffee press and pour-over are still being offered and  also deliver the flavor and unique characteristics of each Starbucks Reserve coffee.

Two Starbucks Reserve coffees will be introduced as well: Peru Chonti and Peaberry Malawi Sable Farms.

Other branches already opened are Starbucks Tomas Morato, Starbucks Eight Forbestown, Starbucks Keyland Centre, and Starbucks Central Square.