You stumble out of bed in the morning you look to your left and see your alarm clock roaring its terrible roar. The sound that wakes you up in the morning, the sound of unrested souls being rudely awakened, the sound every human being hates. Time to get up and start your day. What comes next you may ask, coffee.

The National Coffee Association did a poll in 2013 which revealed that about 83 percent of adults drink coffee daily. The average adult coffee drinker drinks around three cups of coffee to get through their day. In case you were wondering that would be 587 million cups of coffee a day.

Why does this relate most to Starbucks instead of all coffee shops? Because Starbucks has the highest priced coffee nationwide for close to the worst quality coffee. But why would people keep coming? Easy. Because of the location, convenience, and branding.

Starbucks has bottled coffee in almost every gas station and grocery store around the nation, so as you’re getting gas you slip inside the gas station to grab a cup of coffee in the morning, you look to the drink coolers and see a cute glass bottle of pre-made grab and go Starbucks coffee. So instead of the filling your black cup of nasty gas station coffee with ten tons of creamer and sugar you grab an already creamed bottled coffee and you go on your way. Convenience at its finest.

Not only does Starbucks have bottled convenience almost everywhere, but they also have the most convenient locations. Starbucks locates themselves near big cooperate offices and next to the fancy apartment editions and just off the highways so you can swing by before a long day of work. They are everywhere you need them to be. Now they have drive-thru’s, apps and delivery to make your morning coffee experience faster. There are also Starbucks stores plastered all over in grocery stores so you can grab a coffee while you tackle the rigorous act of shopping for kids. There are Starbucks stores in airports so you can get the energy you need to meet the new family after a long plane ride.

Starbucks also has a good name for itself because being a teen I see that some teens and younger kids get Starbucks to look cool. Kids also love sugar and that is something Starbucks has.

Now you may be curious what am I actually paying for?

Let’s break down one of the most popular drinks at Starbucks, the Mocha Frappuccino.

At 410 calories and 61g of sugar and no health benefits at all you are getting a cup of ice, milk, coffee Frappuccino syrup (sugar, water, salt, natural and artificial flavors, xanthan gum, potassium sorbate, citric acid, and caramel color), coffee, whip cream (cream, milk, mono and diglycerides, and carrageenan), vanilla syrup (sugar, water, natural flavors, potassium sorbate, citric acid), mocha sauce (water, sugar, cocoa processed with alkali, vanillin).

I don’t know about you but I can’t even say half of those words, and I see a lot of syrups and processed things going into just this one drink. Also please notice that there is not vanilla in the vanilla syrup.

So after research and going to Starbucks a couple times I found that to make the drink actually would only be around .75 cents for a venti. Then you have to pay the worker for making it to so it would be like around $2.75. So you’re paying like 3 dollars more than you should have to pay.

*Mic drop*

So where can you get your coffee fix quick and cheap?

• Quik Trip
• McDonalds
• Dunkin Donuts

All of these places have quality equal to Starbucks’ coffee for lower prices.

I’m not going to lie to you, I still run to Starbucks when I don’t have time to go all the way downtown to Quay coffee, Parsi or Oddly correct. So my acts go on to prove that it is a convenient place.