The Fancy Starbucks Coffee Machine That Connoisseurs Should Know About

If there's one thing we know about Starbucks as a company, it's going to keep pushing innovations through the pipeline. One such development the company has been rolling out since 2022 is the Clover Vertica, a coffee machine meant to streamline the efficiency of getting your cup of java. But what exactly is it, and how has it been received?

To help answer this question, Starbucks talked to Food Republic about the Clover Vertica, calling it "a proprietary single-cup coffee brewer that aims to reimagine the coffee experience for customers and baristas." On average, a Starbucks location serves around 600 cups of coffee a day, a far cry from their early days, when Starbucks didn't sell hot coffee for 12 years. The idea of every cup being brewed individually might make you question the efficiency, but one of the appeals of the Vertica is how fast it can churn out the joe. "It's designed to grind and brew a single cup of coffee in about a minute, offering a faster bean-to-cup experience with up to six different coffee choices –- all day," the company rep informed us. It also keeps more of the intended flavors and mouthfeel of the coffee than large-batch drip pots that sit for an extended time.

However, the machine isn't used for every cup of coffee that gets sold. While it's also used on dark roasts and decafs, one of its primary functions is ensuring there is always blonde roast coffee available, such as the Sunsera blend, as a contrast to the dark roasts that brew faster but are also why Starbucks coffee tastes burnt.

Not every location has this machine, but that doesn't mean there's less access to the blonde roasts, if you're interested. "For stores that don't have a Clover Vertica but use a Bunn Brewer, Starbucks baristas brew blonde roast throughout the day. Even if a blonde roast isn't actively being brewed on the Bunn Brewer, it's still available all day to customers via a single-cup pour-over," Starbucks said in a statement to Food Republic.

One of the key aims of the Clover Vertica is on the environmental side. Becoming more sustainable is something that has always been a part of the Starbucks mission, but other chains have similar intentions. Chick-fil-A's free digital cookbook, designed to eliminate leftover food waste, is an example of this movement, and the Vertica has a similar purpose. By moving to a brewed-to-order model, Starbucks is able to reduce the amount of wasted paper filters, water, and old, stale coffee. The stated goal of the company is to reduce water, waste, and carbon by 50% by 2030, and this is meant to help reach that aim.

The reaction from Starbucks baristas and customers on Reddit has been mixed, with many baristas saying it makes life easier on both sides of the customer experience, not to mention the waste benefits. "We dump so much coffee on the daily[;] I'm all for it," wrote one commenter (via Reddit). Others have claimed that the quick-brew properties prevent the proper flavors from forming, writing, "It's pretty watery and a little over-extracted. It reminds me of a Keurig brew, but better" (per Reddit).