Academic studies Starbucks cultural impact

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports:

Founded in Seattle in 1971, Starbucks Corp. now has 11,000 outlets in 37 countries, including 500 in Tokyo. There is a Starbucks's in Beijing's Forbidden City, and the round green logo adorns the streets of Edinburgh and the boulevards of Paris.

The company expects to open 1,800 new stores this year and aims eventually to have 30,000 outlets, half of them outside the United States.

British historian Jonathan Morris said that even in Britain - a stalwart bastion of tea drinking where there are now almost 500 Starbucks stores - the chain has become entrenched in daily life.

While British coffee consumption lags far behind most other European nations, sales of "premium" coffee drinks like lattes and cappuccinos are on the rise.

"I'm not sure how much Starbucks is American any more for British customers," said Morris, a University of Hertfordshire professor who is leading a research project called "The Cappuccino Conquests" about the global spread of Italian coffee.

Supply and demand.