Starbucks speaks: Griner, your complaint is groundless. Have a Starbucks card.

So a week or so ago, I e-mailed Starbucks customer service to point out that the quality of their beans has gone from "burnt but generally good" to "burnt and gnarled like tiny black gravel."

I was more polite in my phrasing, but I really was noticing that the great Bucks doesn't seem to screen its beans as well as it used to. For all its faults, Starbucks consistently had evenly roasted beans without too many misfit toys per bag. Lately, it seems there are more bad beans than ever.

(Note about today's photo -- this is an illustration of the difference between Starbucks beans, at left, and roasted beans from a small shop in Ukiah, Calif. The portion at the top left is malformed and broken beans from the Starbucks sample. For more, check out this coffee blog where I found it.)

In addition to my complaint, I did praise Starbucks for adding more fair trade coffees. I pointed out that they still have a long way to go, but any progress is good progress for coffee farmers who make pennies for something that costs more than $13 a gallon.

Today, I got my response from the hidden Starbucks superfortress atop Mount Seattle:

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Dear Mr. Griner,

Thanks so much for contacting us regarding the quality of the coffee beans that you received as well as your kind words regarding our fair trade efforts.

Your feedback is very important to us, so we appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts. I want to assure you that I've passed on your comments to the appropriate people in our company for their attention.

I want to assure you that we take pride in providing the best coffee available, and that all of our purchases are screened at different points in their process from growth through roasting and bagging. I would be happy to mail you a Starbucks card to replace the bag that you found to be of low quality.

If you have any other questions or concerns, don't hesitate to call our Customer Relations department at (800) 23-LATTE. Or, email us from www.starbucks.com/customer/.

Thank you again for contacting Starbucks, we really appreciate it.

Best Regards,

Bill B.
Customer Relations Representative
Starbucks Coffee Company

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So this is apparently an isolated incident....a once-in-a-lifetime bag of crap coffee. Oh well, at least they responded and are apparently sending me a make-good card.