Starbucks® Christmas Blend Vintage 2015

[playful music]

[Man] It comes in a shipment in the middle of the night

when nobody's here, and it has a sticker on the front,

don't open until a certain date.

And then finally that day comes.

And it's like Christmas, but a couple months early.

[playful music]

[ Starbuck`s Brista] Hello and Welcome to PikePlace

Starbucks, We have the honor and privilege today

of introducing and tasting for the very first time

Christmas Blend Vintage 2015, that sweetness,

that spice, the dark roasty flavor,

Thirty-first year of Christmas Blend.

[Howard Shultz] This is a coffee that is very personal

for me, I was involved in year one.

[Doug Lanworthy] This year what I think is different

about Christmas Blend is the aged component really

shows through in the cup. Coffee is an agricultural

product and so just like wine, the crop will change from

year to year.

[Leslie Wolford] It has always been steeped in

blend of light and lively Latin American coffees.

We have Asia-Pacific coffees in there because

there sturdier, richer, more robust flavors.

And then you know that secret element thats not very

secret anymore is the aged Sumatara component.

[Doug] That process, that three to five years minimum

of the coffee literally sitting in a warehouse

in that kind of hot, humid climate helps take it along

that process.

[Howard Shultz] You take a spectacular aged bordeaux

wine and aged Sumatara you will taste a thread

of that earthiness.

[Brian Hayes] What`s specifically different this year

is we actually roast, what we call a base and then we

will actually roast this individual coffee on a

completely different curve to a completely different

color and blend it back in.

[Leslie Wolford] The flavors of Christmas Blend

are unique because they take elements from sweetness

and from savory and we can pair it with our dinner

or we can have it with a great dessert.

[crowd] Cheers

[woman] I thought this year`s Christmas Blend was

amazing, it had a sweetness to it

_ [Man] It`s got a nuttiness that I like, and it`s got

a spiciness, an earthiness, its got lots of cedar to it.

[Leslie Wolford] Everyone has an experience with this

coffee, they can tell you where they were when

they first had it, what celebration they took it to.

_ [Brian Hayes] For me it was sorta that first time

was like this is what good coffee is,

_[Doug] So when I think about Christmas Blend 2016

or 2017, part of the excitement is, we don`t really truly

know what's just exactly whats going to be in the cup

there because every year is just a little different

and I think that`s part of the magic of the

Christmas Blend.

[music]