【2023 Starbucks Earth Day】More Than Just Free Starbucks Coffee, There Are Meaningful Things to Do!

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Do you know what day April 22nd is?

"I know, I know — Earth Day!" No! It's the release date of Starbucks' annual blockbuster: "Attack of the Giant Cup — Pots, Pans, and Water Buckets Filled with Coffee."

To mark this festival established for global environmental protection, Starbucks has offered free medium-sized (355ml) drip coffee on April 22nd since 2015 — but you have to bring your own Starbucks travel mug or marker cup, an effort to encourage consumers to support the environment. When the event first launched, the response was lukewarm, because it required using a cup purchased from Starbucks. By 2016, the deal had become "buy coffee with your own cup and receive free coffee grounds" — which, frankly, had almost no appeal to consumers.

So two years later, on April 22nd, 2017, Starbucks changed tack: as long as you brought your own cup, you could get a designated medium-sized beverage within a specified time. Just bring your own cup?! With no rules about the material, type, shape, or capacity of the cup, netizens immediately rummaged through their homes for anything that could hold liquid and rushed to Starbucks.

By 2018, the company introduced products made from Tyvek paper. And on Earth Day 2019, you could again get a designated medium-sized beverage within a specified time simply by bringing your own cup.

Starting in 2020, however, you had to grab a coupon in the livestream room the day before Earth Day for a chance at a free medium-sized oat milk latte the next day. On this coupon-grabbing arrangement, netizens said Starbucks was being stingy, while Starbucks replied: refuse to gather.

In 2021, you also had to join challenge activities to unlock the chance to get free medium-sized designated products with your own cup. Because of this, netizens began to lose interest in the Earth Day events and asked: is the free coffee on Earth Day still happening?

Since the Earth Day events from 2019 to 2021 had failed to draw as many enthusiastic participants as in 2017, Starbucks brought back the "use your own cup to get a designated medium-sized beverage within a specified time" event in 2022.

After a 5-year hiatus, netizens went even crazier — so wild that the topic shot to the top of the trending list!

So orderly? No! No! No! That is the official event scene photo released by Starbucks — the actual situation looked like this:

Water buckets, kettles, thermos bottles... they all came out! There were also plus-sized goblets, filled with 355ml of iced Americano, held with a certain elegance.

Of course, no matter how large the pots, pans, bottles, and jars were, Starbucks would only pour 355ml of coffee. If you see a very large container that seems to "return fully loaded," it was 100% bought by the netizens themselves.

Okay, back to the main topic. After watching all this, do you still remember what Starbucks' bring-your-own-cup event was actually for?

"Remember! Earth Day is coming in a few days! I've already prepared my pots and pans!" No! It's "Protect the environment — everyone has responsibility." (Everyone should bring a container of appropriate capacity.)

Free is not the point, don't forget the original intention of "environmental protection"

If you only care about that free cup of black coffee, then you really haven't grasped Starbucks' intention. Don't forget the big premise of getting a free cup on April 22nd: bringing your own cup.

April 22nd is "World Earth Day," a festival for environmentalists worldwide and a day of environmental publicity. On this day, people of different nationalities promote and practice the concept of environmental protection in different ways. The earliest Earth Day activities were environmental movements that emerged on American campuses in the 1970s, and in the 1990s the movement spread from the United States to the rest of the world. As one of the large American enterprises, Starbucks naturally takes part.

In addition to World Earth Day, Starbucks China also joined the "Earth Hour" environmental activity.

What Starbucks mainly advocates through the free coffee event on World Earth Day is the environmental idea of achieving recyclability and reducing plastic straws by bringing your own cup. That is why the participation condition is that those who come for coffee need to bring their own cups.

In addition, starting today, nearly 1,000 Starbucks stores in Shenzhen and Shanghai, along with the Starbucks Delivery platform, will stop providing plastic straws, using instead specially developed drink-through lids that can replace them. If a straw is needed, a more environmentally friendly paper straw will be provided.

Coffee is delicious, but very environmentally unfriendly?

In the coffee industry, advocating for environmental protection is not a one-day or two-day matter. In fact, the process from coffee planting to the beverage that reaches our mouths contains many aspects that are not environmentally friendly.

In cultivation, for example, coffee — especially Arabica varieties — generally has low yields and is easily affected by pests. In the 1990s, farmers who focused solely on yield used large amounts of fertilizers and pesticides, which harmed the Earth's ecosystem and gradually depleted natural resources through overuse, ultimately lowering coffee quality. The large consumption of water during coffee bean processing is another sign of insufficient environmental care.

The coffee we drink daily also contains factors that pollute the Earth — large amounts of non-degradable plastic products, such as cups, straws, and the capsule shells used in capsule machines, as well as the leftover coffee grounds.

Fortunately, both coffee producers and those of us who drink coffee have noticed these practical problems and launched multiple measures. The drink-through lids mentioned in Starbucks China's event this time have been promoted worldwide, while Nestlé, a major instant coffee player, has switched its capsule coffee shells to all-aluminum, which can be recycled infinitely.

Beyond these large enterprises, many companies also reuse coffee grounds, from the familiar use as fertilizer to making batteries and even clothes — a variety of technological and creative ideas. And what about us coffee lovers? Very simple! Use fewer plastic straws when drinking coffee outside, and bring your own cup for takeout — that is a good environmental action in itself.

Clothes made from coffee grounds

After getting that free cup of coffee in the morning, will everyone continue to bring their own travel cups when buying coffee outside in the future?

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If Earth Day has nudged you toward brewing at home and cutting down on disposable cups, FrontStreet Coffee's entry-level lineup is an affordable place to start. From Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, the FrontStreet sun-dried Huakui from Sidamo is a traditional natural coffee with berry, floral, jackfruit, melon, and honey notes, while the FrontStreet washed Giddingding Cooperative is a classic Yirgacheffe representative with jasmine florals, lemon acidity, and berry notes. The washed Yirgacheffe staple is equally approachable, known for its white jasmine, bright citrus and lemon acidity, and tea-like body.

For a softer, sweeter cup, FrontStreet's Brazil Cerrado Red Bourbon is a daily-drinker single origin with typical cream, peanut, and cocoa flavors, and the Queen's Estate stands out for its rare Yellow Bourbon variety, grown at a higher altitude and carrying butter, seed, macadamia, and almond aromas with a sugarcane-like sweetness that turns thick and smooth with milk. Indonesia is represented by the wet-hulled Lintong Mandheling and the higher-grade PWN Golden Mandheling, triple hand-sorted and once machine-sorted for a cleaner, smoother cup with clearer woody and caramel notes. From Colombia, the FrontStreet Huila, Sidra, and Big Belly Button coffees come from the famous Huila region above 1,500 meters and lean toward gentle florals and soft fruit acidity.

More options round out the range: Costa Rica's honey-processed FrontStreet Blackberry and raisin-honey Mozart deliver raisin and blueberry sweetness with osmanthus and rose aromas and suit pour-over, cold brew, Americano, and latte alike; the washed FrontStreet Yunnan Small Bean from Baoshan offers traditional nut and chocolate flavors in a soft, balanced cup, while the 2013 Yunnan Typica, grown at 1,300 meters and best roasted medium, brings hazelnut, dried apricot, black tea, caramel, and ripe plum aromas. For a taste of Panama, the entry-level FrontStreet Boquete washed Geisha shows the variety's signature orange-blossom honey character at a very reasonable price.