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Starbucks wasted 40,000 cups of coffee

Published: 2026-04-24 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2026/04/24, Hong Kong Starbucks Coffee (Starbucks), owned by Meixin Group, has been accused of wasting coffee. Some Starbucks employees revealed that the company began to train 1200 employees in Hong Kong yesterday, requiring each of them to make 36 drinks within 30 minutes, and all the "experiments" made during the training will be poured out. In other words, there will be more than 40, 000 cups of fragrant coffee in the training process.

Hong Kong Starbucks Coffee (Starbucks), owned by Meixin Group, has been accused of wasting coffee. Some employees of Starbucks revealed that since yesterday, the company has been conducting training for 1200 employees in Hong Kong, requiring each of them to make 36 cups of drinks within 30 minutes, and all the "experiments" made during the training will be poured out. In other words, more than 40, 000 cups of strong coffee will be turned into waste water during the training process.

A spokesman for Starbucks in Hong Kong said that different training has been continuously provided to new and in-service employees to enable them to provide customers with hand-made drinks of the same standard and of high quality, and requiring employees to adjust drinks is also a standard training for the catering industry. however, the actual training content of the company will not be disclosed.

Some Starbucks employees pointed out that since yesterday, the company began to train all frontline employees one after another, with the content that each employee should make 36 drinks within 30 minutes. After the employees have completed the training, these drinks will be poured out like waste water. According to the calculation of 1200 employees, 40 000 cups of coffee have been poured out.

Lin Yi, who won the second runner-up in the Coffee King contest the year before last, said that it usually takes 10 to 20 minutes to seriously mix a cup of coffee with both color and flavor. Even if it takes more than 10 minutes to make a pot of coffee that can fill eight cups, it will take an average of two minutes for each cup. If you make more than 30 cups of coffee in 30 minutes, it is the same time as brewing instant coffee with hot water. It is hard to imagine that you can produce coffee of a high standard.

Catering industry: common practice

Huang Jiahe, president of the Hong Kong Catering Association, who is himself a coffee baker, pointed out that the final dumping of drinks made during training is an inevitable process and a common practice in the catering industry. A cup of coffee usually has ten grams of coffee beans and two hundred grams of water. He doesn't think the waste is serious.

He added that fast food restaurants use a fully automatic coffee machine, while Starbucks uses a semi-automatic coffee machine, which has three outlets and can produce multiple cups of coffee in a short period of time during peak hours.

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