The origin story of Starbucks Christmas Blend

• 7 min read
• December 5, 2024

There's something magical about Starbucks Christmas Blend. It could be that comforting aroma, or the harmony of distinctive flavors. Or it could be the festive packaging, wrapping the coffee like a beautiful gift. Let's travel back to the beginning to see how it all began, and how it has changed the course of Starbucks history forever.

In the early days of Starbucks, the company didn't serve brewed coffee yet, only the fresh-roasted beans you could brew at home. If you've ever visited the original store at Pike Place Market , you'd get the vibe - with long wooden counters and bins full of coffee beans, weighed and scooped into paper bags by hand from places like Guatemala, Kenya and Sumatra.

In 1984, on the day after Thanksgiving, they decided to try something new with the launch of their first-ever holiday coffee - Starbucks Christmas Blend. The beans were carefully chosen to complement the tastes of the season with lively Latin American beans and mellow Indonesian coffees. The finishing touch was the addition of carefully aged beans from the island of Sumatra for a little spice.

About Aged Sumatra

The journey begins with fresh, unroasted (green) Sumatra coffee beans purchased at the peak of harvest. Then select lots are moved in burlap bags to Singapore, which has the perfect climate for temperature and humidity. There they rest for three to five years, aged with meticulous care. The Starbucks coffee team tastes a sample each year to see how the coffee is progressing until it reaches the optimum flavor with deep notes of cedar and sweet baking spices.

Gay Niven was Starbucks merchandising manager that year and remembers closing the company's five stores early the night before Thanksgiving to prepare for the holiday season. She and the team decorated with fresh poinsettias and cedar garland from the Pike Place Market's garden store and lined the shelves with gift baskets filled with mugs, coffee and tea. And when the doors opened on Black Friday, Nov. 23, there was Starbucks Christmas Blend.

"I do think that Christmas Blend was a really a pivotal moment for Starbucks, where it really hit on something that was like, 'This is really good,'" Niven said.

A holiday favorite takes off

The company's single roasting plant soon struggled to keep up with demand, with customers snapping up bags of Starbucks Christmas Blend for themselves or as a gift for a friend or loved one. (This was more than 15 years before Starbucks gift cards .)

Dave Seymour , a 42-year roasting plant partner (employee) who started on the same day as former Starbucks chief executive officer Howard Schultz in 1982, was part of a team of about 20 people in the shipping and receiving warehouse then. He remembers receiving urgent orders by phone and over voicemail and writing them down by hand on a paper order sheet. The roasters would fire up the roasting machines, and then his team would take over to pack the freshly roasted coffee in 20-pound metal cans and deliver them across town. They were often roasting so quickly, the cans would be warm when they arrived in stores.

A Starbucks partner unloads a delivery of fresh-roasted coffee at the Pike Place Market Starbucks store in the early 1980s.

"Christmas Blend was our first big hit, so we were sort of guessing on the volume, and we didn't really guess right … we would get calls for emergency 1,000-pound orders," Seymour said. "In those days, if we did an emergency order, we could easily package it and deliver it within a couple hours."

The next year, the buzz around Starbucks Christmas Blend began to build by autumn, and stores put up calendars to count down the number of days until its return. Once it arrived, customers would often wait in lines that stretched out the door, and store partners could spend an entire eight-hour shift scooping and bagging coffee to give to waiting customers.

Seymour remembers, "It's kind of similar to when they release the red (holiday) cup nowadays. Everyone wants that first pound or first cup."

A new era as a coffeehouse

In 1987, Starbucks began a new chapter as a coffeehouse and customers could enjoy Starbucks Christmas Blend as brewed coffee in stores for the first time. It marked the beginning of tremendous growth for the company. New stores opened for the first time in Chicago and Vancouver, B.C. and the store count would grow from 17 stores. By its initial public offering in 1992, the company would expand to 140 stores, and by 1999 it would have more than 2,500, including the new markets of Japan, United Kingdom and China.

Dave Olsen , a 27-year partner and creator of Espresso Roast, led the development of Starbucks Christmas Blend during this time, and it was doubtless the first sip of Starbucks coffee enjoyed by millions of new customers. It was a task he took seriously each year, striving to find that just-right balance of Latin American, Indonesian and aged Sumatra coffees for that perfect holiday cup.

"A nicely composed blend is something that doesn't grow on a single tree. It's something you put together, similar to wine blending from different varieties or different vineyards. It's a thing unto itself, and that was the objective every year," Olsen said.

Christmas Blend makes a special delivery in this beloved 1991 advertisement.

A new millennium brought a new chapter in the history of Starbucks Christmas Blend with new holiday traditions taking hold. Holiday red holiday cups began to signal the season and Peppermint Mocha would make its debut in 2002. And still, Starbucks Christmas Blend remained a favorite with its festive flavors of spiced chocolate and cedar tips.

Christmas Blend timeline

1984: Starbucks Christmas Blend is introduced as a whole bean coffee in stores, hand-scooped into paper bags.

1987: Starbucks becomes a coffeehouse, and customers can order brewed Starbucks Christmas Blend in stores for the first time.

1988: Starbucks Christmas Blend is available by mail order for the first time.

1997: Customers sip Starbucks Christmas Blend from festive red holiday cups for the first time.

1998: Starbucks Christmas Blend and other packaged coffees arrive on grocery store shelves.

2013: Starbucks Holiday Blend gains its own unique medium-roast blend for the holidays with bright Latin American and smooth Indonesian coffees.

2015: Starbucks Reserve® Christmas makes its debut.

Beyond Christmas Blend

In 2015, inspired by the opening of the first Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Seattle the year before, Starbucks created its first Starbucks Reserve® Christmas.

Leslie Wolford, coffee and tea development principal, was part of the team that created the inaugural holiday blend for Starbucks Reserve® Coffee. She had started with the company as a barista in 1991 and has a deep affinity for Starbucks Christmas Blend.

"Everyone has a story to share when they first experience this coffee," Wolford said. "They can tell you where they were when they first had it. They can tell you what celebration they took it to."

Celebrating Christmas Blend 2024

Starbucks Christmas Blend is now a family of seasonal coffees that is part of the holiday traditions of millions of people around the world, including Starbucks Christmas Blend (whole and ground), Starbucks Christmas Blend Decaf, Starbucks Holiday Blend and Starbucks Reserve® Christmas.

Gay Niven, who would go on to spend 30 years working for Starbucks, still enjoys picking up Starbucks Christmas Blend during the holidays. "In all the years it's been going on, it hasn't been diluted in any way. (It's always) a really nice, full-bodied blend that speaks to the Starbucks roast unapologetically," she said. "I think it really does speak to the pride in the bag."

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