I’m Lookin’ Over/A Super Hyped Clover

Way back in December, before we found and happily settled in with Texas Coffee Traders as our local coffee vendor, we went out on a search. And along the way, visiting with another vendor, we had a day of coffee education. This included bean knowledge, roasting facts, latte foam art pointers, the ins and outs of cupping and, for just a moment or two…

Interaction with a Clover!

What the hell is a Clover? It’s an $11,000 coffee machine that allegedly makes the perfect cup, a feat accomplished cup by cup, bean by bean, degree by degree. Bean X, is roasted to level Y, and sent through the machine at temperature Z will make a cup totally different from the same bean, same roast level, sent through at a temperature just a few degrees different. What sounds like a new spin on six degrees of separation, a silly splitting of hairs, is actually big business to some self-appointed coffee aficionados who don’t seem to mind shelling out up to $7 per cup.

We didn’t have much time with the Clover we tried out, and none of us had an experience memorable enough to be, well, memorable.

Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, had a different experience when he tried his first cup of Clover brew. According to an article in the August issue of Wired by Mathew Honan, Schultz declared it “the best cup of brewed coffee I have ever tasted.” (Such an opening for a joke about how, clearly, he must’ve only been drinking Starbucks prior to the Clover to feel this way.)

So Schultz did what folks like Schultz and Gates and Dell can do when they find a toy they like. He bought the entire company. Yes, that’s right, Coffee Equipment Company, which introduced the Clover in 2006, is already a big sell out. And Clover designer Nander Nosler isn’t making any excuses or apologies for selling out, saying he’s fine with moving on, seeing as he’s a designer first and foremost.

The Wired article is impressive — just the fact Honan, an admitted “coffee achiever,” managed to squeeze four compelling pages out of the topic is something. And it’s pretty wild to learn about Starbucks’ plan — [they are] “willing to share custody…of the 250 machines already out there, plus maintain and repair them, but it won’t sell any more Clovers to independent cafes.” This, not surprisingly, has not set well with Clover’s early adopters.  At least one has sold his machines in protest.

SPOILER ALERT: Honan closes his piece with a stroll into a Starbucks that is equipped with a Clover. He orders a cup. He watches the barista prepare it all wrong. He tastes it and can’t differentiate it from a regular cup. And he concludes: “I finally pick it out: This coffee tastes a little bit like hype.”