I‘ve long thought that Starbucks was an excellent indicator of America’s economic health because it was a well-run company whose product is the perfect embodiment of affordable, expendable luxury. If consumers really are anxious about their economic lives, a daily SBUX purchase is the easiest thing to do without. Earlier this year SBUX announced the first store closings in company history on the heels of its first-ever decline in sales. That looked pretty grim. Chief Howard Schultz did a lot of other tinkering, including closing every store for a couple hours on a February to re-teach the “art of coffee.” Schultz maintained that SBUX’s core concept was still viable and that the problems the company was experiencing were of its own making: that they had gotten away from selling good coffee and become too invested in side-missions. The blog Starbucks Gossip carries an item reporting on a new corporate directive from Seattle: During the “art of coffee” in service, baristas were taught to pull espresso shots into glass shot glasses so they could inspect the quality before tossing the shot into your drink cup. Now that’s out the window: Starbucks baristas are being told to pull espresso shots directly into the end-user’s cup. Here’s the note of one barista: