SBUX SCRIPT VO: At the new Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood the vibe is downright artisanal and the coffee is the rarest there is. I’ve had this dream about creating this one of a kind place that would be so immersive, multi sensory, in which we would roast the finest micro lot coffees the world had to offer... Title: Starbucks Bets Big on Beans Master Roaster: The coffees that we’re going to have here are much fancier than is typically available at our Starbucks stores.. This machine is made for smaller lots of very special, unique coffees that have nuances that we don’t see in normal regular production. VO: And at prices not normally seen at Starbucks. Some Reserve coffees cost nearly 50 dollars a pound. HS: There will be a premium price to this coffee because of the unique rarity of, rare aspect of these coffees and the way we’re brewing it. VO: The Roastery is a shift to the exclusive for a company built on ubiquity. HS: The coffee that will be roasted here in the roastery will be presented to over 1500 Starbucks stores. We’ll be opening up satellite reserve stores and then over time we will build these roasteries in international global cities. . Liz Muller, design, Starbucks: This is a magical place where coffee comes to life. You have an integrated experience where the beans flow like rain over-head and coming into the silos and then the barista will actually scoop it and put it into grinders..so there is no fresher coffee in the world and no experience like this. VO: In the caffeine-soaked Northwest, the coffee intelligentsia, while thankful to Starbucks for building a market for fancy coffee, is questioning if the company can reinvent itself as a hip hand-crafter. David J. Morris, Chief executive, Dillanos: I think the big players when trying to get into the business of small batch roasting like what we do, I think they have a hard time going backwards. VO: David Morris is the CEO of Dillano’s, a small roaster in nearby Sumner, Washington, that scours the earth for rare beans for its premium roasts. I think you can start out small and grow large but once you’re large it’s really hard to get the consumer’s perception that you are authentic and a small batch roaster with the best quality. VO: Dillano’s roasted the espresso that Laila Ghambari, of Cherry Street Coffee, used to win this year’s United States barista championship. Laila: I would put a lot of what Starbucks is and McDonalds is in the same category. It’s a fast food product. But what they are trying to do now with these pop ups and micro roasteries, specialty stores they are trying to move themselves into the specialty market. That is a good thing for our consumers to see. You know, when coffee costs a dollar at McDonalds that doesn’t do anything for us. But when it costs 3-5 dollars at a Starbucks brew by the cup that’s going to pique people’s interest in understanding that the average cup of coffee should cost more. VO: Up the street is Vivace where David Schomer and his crew pull thick shots of their own espresso roast. David Schomer: Well roasting is where the flavors are created. The espresso machine is where the flavors are preserved into the cup. DS: Starbucks is very dark roast. That means you can make it on almost any machine and you’re going to have that real intense bitter shot My muse is completely different. I want that espresso to taste sweet in the cup. VO: Schomer sees the rise of boutique coffees as a sign of increasing sophistication of American taste. DS: If they make a better cup of coffee that’s what people want, at least here in Seattle. VO: That’s what Starbucks is banking on with its roastery and Reserve coffees. HS: I think we have not only honored our company but we’ve honored the entire industry of hundreds of years of coffee in taking it to a new level. So this is theater, romance, coffee roasting, but at the end of the day all of which has to be proven in the cup... and it will be..