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Business practices aside, Starbucks coffee seems to get a lot of derision from people who consider themselves coffee aficionados. Why is this? I can understand why one might not like the idea of an enormous creamy, iced, syrup-filled beverage, but is there anything wrong with their actual espresso?
An example of this common mindset is presented on Time.com:
[...] no coffee snob I know would be caught dead drinking a latte, especially the Starbucks latte they implied.
In order to maintain consistency, Starbucks roasts their coffee a tad bit longer than many might prefer. The espresso you get in New York is going to taste exactly like the one you got in Hong Kong, or New Delhi - that's actually kind of impressive. Still, if you're someone that likes their beans just past the second 'crack' - you might find their espresso a bit too dark, a bit too bitter and a bit too expensive to be accepting of a disappointment.
Now, the coffee that they sell in bags gives you plenty of options - you can still get a nice blonde-roasted bag of single source Arabica at many locations. If you're there to order something with milk in it, then you're probably not going to notice just how dark the beans really taste - you'll probably just enjoy your coffee.
However, if you tend to take espresso straight, or a drink that is basically espresso cut with water or very little milk, you might thumb your nose in the air a bit. Then again, I'd take a bitter-ish espresso over a cup of bland-ish drip any day.
People love to complain if given the opportunity. If you like their espresso, enjoy it - if not, well, drink other espresso :)
Starbucks is a coffee-chain, but "It's not about the coffee". Their main focus is actually the personal experience of going there. They train their employees to remember regular's names (and not only that; the get loads of training on handling people, conversation tactics, and personal skills), they have that "your name on the cup" thing, and generally, their focus is actually the reception you get and how you feel going to Starbucks.
So while their coffee might be good, if one goes there and ignores all the other factors and solely focuses on the taste, one might find that there are better places in town.
I like the answers already here, but want to add on a bit.
Coffee freshness is an extremely important variable when selecting coffee. There are roughly 800 volatile molecular components found in coffee and much of it evaporates within several days of resting and/or minutes after grinding. A true coffee snob is very interested in a "roast date" rather than a "best by date" because it gives you a read on freshness rather than the fabricated "expiration" that the roaster arbitrarily puts on the bag. Imagine selecting bread at a bakery and they won't tell you the day it's baked, it is rather mind boggling!
Since starbucks is an international chain, coffee freshness does not become a economical priority when servicing thousands of stores and millions of customers. Roasted coffee sits in warehouses until it is finally delivered and used by the barista or bought off the shelf by the consumer. It appears that Starbucks shelf-life is 12 months according to their Standards for Food Suppliers.
