For all the Starbucks hate, they do have some decent blends, they are also the ones responsible for bringing the aforementioned Italian roasting machine into the US. I dearly miss La Boulange, I use yo get bread there daily when I lived downtown. It was one of those rare places that every time you go inside it's beautiful.I brew coffee at home from ground whole beans. My peferred brands are Starbucks (I can feel the flamin' arrows already) and Dunkin'. I been drinking the Starbucks Yukon blend since 1971 when I discovered it on a business trip to Seattle.
Yukon Blend has an interesting history of being one of the very first blends. Indeed, it was mentioned in the Seattle Times in a 1971 review about the new Starbucks store at Pike Place Market. The official Starbucks Yukon Blend story goes like this:
“Starbucks lore tells the tale of Yukon Blend® as a coffee created for one of our original customers – the captain of a fishing boat. He asked us to make a coffee blend for his crew that could stand up to the frigid mornings and long days fishing in the cold waters where the Yukon River feeds into the Bering Sea. We created Yukon Blend®: a hearty, bold, well-rounded coffee that can withstand any adventure the day might throw at you … even icy waves over the bow.”
Yukon Blend has the distinction of being in the coffee lineup and then removed from the lineup between sometime in 2008 to about August 2009 when it was reintroduced as an organic coffee. I can’t think of another coffee that started out as a core coffee, pulled from the shelves to be reformulated as organic, and re-introduced as an organic core coffee. This grizzly blend has been around since 1971 and well loved ever since.
Yukon Blend was also a favorite of La Boulange founder Pascal Rigo. Back when Starbucks operated La Boulange stores, their house coffee offering was indeed Yukon Blend, though not called that. Speaking of Yukon Blend being sold under different names, this coffee was at one time sold in Texas under the name “Big Hat Blend.”