Coffee is culinary was the inspiration for this annual tradition. The task was to create a coffee blend that would taste great within your amazing Thanksgiving feast. Our approach began by thinking about all the great flavors experienced during this glorious meal. Roasty savory turkey and stuffing, heady spices and herbs, the rich mouthfeel of the gravy and the acidic tartness of the cranberries first came to mind. Now the effort shifted to finding coffees would be best to compliment those in-meal flavors and would blend with great balance and grace.
Much like the Chef that creates a dish that is balanced and layered the quality team took the same approach to Thanksgiving Blend. The blending process started with coffees from 10 different origins. All of those coffees possessed qualities we thought would compliment and inspire a new blend that was worthy of this epic meal. Some had high acidity, some great body and others great complexity. We spent an afternoon putting together about 10 separate blends all with very unique flavors and reasons for being worthy of being the starting point for Thanksgiving Blend. Over the next several weeks we refined and narrowed the selections down to two blends. Now comes the best part. We actually were able to eat a full Thanksgiving dinner well before the actual date to determine which coffee paired better. The choice was obvious.
By blending two very fancy coffees, one from Sumatra featuring medium acid, good body and herbal complexity with the Guatemala Antigua which features high acidity, medium body with lemony acidy and elegant spice and cocoa notes, we created a blend that perfectly compliments all the flavors of the Thanksgiving meal. I would not be telling the truth if I told you we knew we were going to accomplish a blend that fit this perfectly into the meal, even we were surprised. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly knew we would get something great because of our expertise in sourcing and blending but this was really a great surprise and discovery.
I guess that is why I love the job I have. Just when you think you have seen it all something amazing happens and it’s like you are starting all over again. It was a great experience being part of creating the newest Starbucks traditions blend and it is truly rewarding the see it back on the shelves for the second year.
Originally posted Nov 3, 2009