The Starbucks Experience: My Way of Explaining it

I chanced upon a website – www.ihatestarbucks.com – where people from all over America rant about their abhorrence towards Starbucks. Then I thought to myself, “If there would be a www.ilovestarbucks.com, a Filipino would have been its web designer and Filipinos would flood its boards about their fascinations with Starbucks.”
The “Starbucks experience” is distinctively perceived and enjoyed by Filipinos. We had allowed Starbucks to transcend such time and space. Though Starbucks is primarily foreign, it has undergone the process of “indigenization”. This process deals with the link of external influences and our own culture. Starbucks, a Seattle-based company had its way of blending with the Filipino culture. This is why Starbucks became popular among Filipinos. The ambiance, the customers, the baristas’ performance, the taste of the coffee and the architecture of Starbucks has an impact on the whole Starbucks experience. These features reflect the Filipino culture.
The Starbucks experience here in the Philippines can be described as “masarap”. The term, however, is not confined to taste. Our culture is very rich and we are keen to nuances. We are very particular of the quality that points to an inherent element that arouses happiness, fulfillment, and thrill. This is perceived by differentiation, by contrasts and comparisons of inherent distinctiveness of food or event that becomes part of the totality of the experience.
Since 1997, when the first retail location was put up in Makati, the country’s leading financial district, the cafés have multiplied and have become ubiquitous in Metro Manila. These can be found inside malls, near the big universities and colleges, and near gimmick places. We can easily find a Starbucks Coffee retail outlet in Metro Manila. We could go to one depending on our purpose. We drink Starbucks in outlets within the malls after a long tiring day of window shopping to refresh ourselves with iced coffee.
The Starbucks outlets are remarkably located in areas where their target customers hang around. The outlets near the universities and colleges are for those students who are not comfortable enough to cram in their own dormitories or apartments and who need to keep themselves awake to study. Mall outlets are for teenagers who go to malls in the afternoon because they are not yet allowed to stay out at night. For those who are already licensed to party and drink all night, Starbucks has become an extension of the gimmick places where they could drink coffee to overcome the effects alcohol and keep them awake on their ride home.
The kinds of people differ inside each Strabucks outlet, the baristas are different, and the couches, too. However, each outlet has been known to have constant patrons – students of UP Diliman and Ateneo go to the Katipunan branch, while the La Sallians go to Vito Cruz, UP Manila students and Bedans go to UN branch, Makati yuppies go to 6750, and the gimikeros hang out in the outlets in Malate, Libis, Timog and Alabang.
The customers who have frequented the outlets too much, they already have their own space – it may be the couch they find comfortable enough to stimulate them to study, or the al fresco seats where they’ve puffed a number of cigarettes and where they’ve seen a number of cute passers-by. Filipinos may call it their “own” space. Space is merely an expanse but it acquires a human feature once it has been claimed for one’s own use – to stay, sit, and take pleasure in. The transformation becomes cultural and becomes a part of that person, his ways, his experience. Each space, in every little way, provides a different experience.
Other people though go to Starbucks to “tambay” or pass time off while hanging out with friends. Filipinos are used to surrendering their time for the enrichment of their social relations. This is the consequence of a society whose organizational structures contain “ego-centered networks” We usually don’t care about time. A cup of coffee that could be sipped for less than a minute at home can take us hours to consume in Starbucks. We think only of the moment and the amount of money as the givens in which we exist and we master such givens up to the highest extent that we can. We believe that it is really the only way to taste the flavors of life. As a result, Starbucks stores are usually full of people, relishing the cool air-conditioned breeze, relaxing on the cushioned seats and couches to make the most out of their Starbucks expenses.
One of the most important parts of the experience is of course, the element of drinking. Why else would a typical Filipino spend almost or more than a hundred pesos for coffee? Starbucks must really taste good. Taste prevails in our choice of drinks. But it is not all taste. Filipinos are lovers of anything “masarap.” One of the main domains of our appetite is food. We love tasting new foods and drinks. Filipinos have long been instant coffee drinkers and have long been limited to drinking warm coffee. The varieties of Starbucks cold drinks gave them the chance to experience something innovative.
The hot beverages in Starbucks are not that popular. Starbucks offers drinks made of a Filipino variety of coffee, grown in our own lands, to promote our very own coffee culture. This, however, is not that popular among Filipinos. A Filipino favorite would be mocha Frapuccino topped with whipped cream, which Filipinos often mistake for ice cream, much like the ones on top of our traditional cold dessert, the halu-halo.
The usual customers of Starbucks range from the middle class to the upper class because of the price of their products. A 150 peso average expense for coffee is quite luxurious as compared to an instant coffee that ordinarily costs 11 pesos only. The customers apparently choose to spend more because of the perks they could get from it. It is evident that those who come from the same classes feel most secure among people from the same status; there is immediately the same bond of language, food and preferences. The upper class would definitely prefer staying in Starbucks than spend time in fast-food chains where the majority of the people are not of the same class. Conversely, the middle class people feel they are part of the upper class as they hang out in Starbucks. The experience adds up to the feeling of economic well being because otherwise, one has no other business inside the store other than visiting the comfort rooms or drinking water readily available to anyone.
Starbucks has been a gathering place that could be described as something in between formal and informal. It is a place formal enough for a date yet one could dress down and be more relaxed. Starbucks has become, apart from being a café, a gathering place. Filipinos tend to kompol-kompol or form clusters. Group formations are based on affinity, on friendship, on common membership in group, and lastly on issues. Filipinos rarely go to Starbucks alone. However, if one goes there alone, it is not anymore surprising to see familiar faces around and share tables with them. It’s like a networking of relationships, which is an important component of Philippine life. Filipinos accomplish this with whatever resources and interests are available to them. In this case, Starbucks is used as a vehicle for widening one’s social networks.
Each Starbucks store is worth–visiting because each is unique in its own way unlike fast-food joints that are standardized. Real differences have been made from one location to another – not just in size, shape and furnishings, but in the experience you get from each. This is clearly part of the company’s formula: unlike Jollibee, venturing into a Starbucks you haven’t tried before offers the hint of adventure.
Starbucks puts a double shot of hometown flavor into every store. It has different architectural designs for each country. Culture, of course, is taken into consideration in devising one. In the Philippines, coffee bars that feel grounded in the scene lure Filipinos to hang out for a wide spectrum of reasons, and that somehow make us think “Starbucks” for refreshment or conversation. A distinctive feature would be its being inter, intra-connected with other spaces as the window walls connect the inside from the al fresco. The non-smoking friends usually stay inside while the others prefer the outside seating, but the sharp division between the indoor and outdoor is blurred. In such a way, the life of the store is integrated with the street and vicinity, literally and symbolically. The manongs and manangs selling cigarettes are, in one way or another, becomes part of the whole experience.
Parts of the experience too, are the baristas. A barista’s job typically comes down to blending the coffee with the right flavoring. The baristas are entitled to a discount on all drinks, a free bag of roasted coffee beans every week, and two coffees for their shift each day. Baristas here in the Philippines are college-graduates, often good-looking, and sometimes English-speaking. They are more presentable and pleasing to deal with unlike other waiters or crews in restaurants and fast-food chains. They cheerfully greet the customers and ask their orders while maintaining sincere-looking smiles on their face. They get personal with the customers by asking their nicknames and calling them to hand in their ordered drinks. They usually bid jolly farewells as the customers go to their tables. This must be the reason why Filipinos are drawn to Starbucks against its rivals – its near maniacal pursuit of providing customers a friendly and efficient buying experience. Once in a while, it is commonplace for Filipinos to give out weird names so that the baristas would amusingly call out “For Ever!” or “For Bearance!” Even this simple yet unique Filipino humor makes the Starbucks experience worthwhile.
Filipinos’ appreciation is something non-material; “we value the intangibility of the tangible”. This is how we enjoy Starbucks. We enjoy being there. We enjoy the company we are with while we are there. We enjoy the individuality of Starbucks and the individuality we get from it. We enjoy the sentiments and sensations of each moment spent there.
The Starbucks experience and our fascination for it may be rooted to our own culture and value system. For the most part, it is foreign but our culture had its way of transforming it into something only we could enjoy this way.