Almost everyone is familiar with the popular coffee company Starbucks, but do you ever wonder when this brand began? Starbucks is one of the most famous coffee companies in the world, and here is how they started their journey to international fame.

And here is how the humble origin of Starbucks began…

Nowadays, Seattle is seen as the coffee mecca of the United States, and many other popular gourmet coffee brands have come from this city. Starbucks began in 1971 where the first Starbucks was opened at the oldest farmer’s market in the United States, the Pike Place Market in Seattle. The name Starbucks came from a character in Moby Dick, and we are all more than familiar with their mermaid logo, which they say hails from a Norse woodcut.

Initially, Starbucks was a local coffee roaster until Howard Schultz became a part of the company in 1982 to develop their marketing strategy. Schultz then took a trip to Italy where he was inspired by the Italian coffee culture, and he pitched his new ideas to the founders of Starbucks. Starbucks then opened their first coffee bar in 1985, which was called Il Giornale, due to their Italian influence. Needless to say, it was a definite success from the get-go.

By the time that 1987 rolled around, Schultz joined with new investors to purchase Starbucks and open franchises in Chicago and Vancouver. 17 more stores opened within that year alone. There were 165 Starbucks coffee shops in 1992, which was when the company became public with stocks available through NASDAQ. Starbucks introduced their first European location in Zürich, Switzerland, in March 2001. Starbucks is now located in 30 countries worldwide, and they number at over 9000 cafés.

Starbucks hopes to create a positive outcome in the coffee world by donating to charities, yet many people have criticized them because of the amount of waste they create each year with the millions of paper coffee cups they serve. The Starbucks Foundation was introduced in 1997 to fund programs for literacy in Canada and the United States, and they continue to provide support by giving to coffee communities, nurturing young leaders, offering access to clean water, and promoting better education in China. They have also taken the opportunity to set up the C.O.A.S.T. fund to offer assistance to rebuild the Gulf Coast after the devastation by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

In response to the criticism against Starbucks in the waste that they create, Starbucks has made moves to reduce the amount of waste that their cafés generate by recycling. This is a very important matter to Starbucks and Starbucks customers, and they have taken into consideration all of the criticism they received about recycling their paper coffee cups. They have made the goal by 2015 to have recycling available in all store locations to collect waste and also serve espresso drinks in reusable cups for 25% of their beverages sold. This is quite a lofty goal, and we can only wish Starbucks the best in their future endeavors…