Found Objects: Something Bold Is Brewing

Starbucks recently promoted bold coffees with their campaign, "Something Bold is Brewing." It was a pretty good idea and I was excited to try it out. Over the next eight weeks Starbucks would be featuring all of their bold coffees for you to try. This was marketed as a trip around the world through all of their bold coffees. This idea of travel was supported by the need of a "Passport" to participate. You needed to obtain a "Passport" from your Barista to use over the next two months. Every week when you would try a new bold coffee, they would give you a sticker. After you tried all eight bold coffees, and attained all eight coffee bean stickers, a pound of the bold you enjoyed the most could come home with you for free! As established in a previous post, I cant find too many things better than free coffee.

Lets just ignore the logistics of it all...

Well, maybe we'd better think this through because curiosity is getting the better of me.

You could purchase a Tall (Starbucks smallest size) coffee for $1.50 (or $1.60 with MA sales tax). After collecting your 8 stickers (that's 8 multiplied by $1.60), you were entitled to a free pound of the bold you liked the best. So you would end up paying just under $13 over the course of the eight week promotion thereupon you would be entitled to a free pound of coffee. Now remember that a pound of Starbucks coffee would go for anywhere between $8 and $12. Doesn't exactly seem worth it financially-you could just wait till Starbucks coffee goes on sale at the grocery store and give it a whirl in that way.

However, when you are a seminary student needing a place to read (or study Hebrew), with a Starbucks gift card burning a hole in your pocket, and a penchant for coffee-you'd be eager to participate in this voyage. So in order to chronicle my adventures around the world via coffee, I will share my experiences with you here. Stay tuned and see what happens and see if I can be consistent enough to collect all eight stickers, try all eight bold coffees and then get the gold-and by gold of course I mean free coffee.