Starbucks has new rules (the first rule of Starbucks is: Don't talk about Starbucks). Baristas can now make only two drinks at once, and must steam new milk for every drink. Lines will get long. But fresh steamed milk!

Starbucks is raising prices on "larger and more labor-intensive drinks." Regular coffee drinkers: momentary vindication!

I'm no "LEED certified environmental consultant" or "person with a grasp of basic science," but it seems to me that brewing coffee one cup at a time via disposable plastic "K-cups" is a mite wasteful. Well, that's just "consumer perception."

This year U.S. consumers will spend $500 million on "relaxation drinks" (like the ingeniously-titled Drank) to counteract the Red Bull, coffee, and other "energy" shit we drink. If you chug a relaxer and an energy drink simultaneously, is that speedballing?

McDonald's saw you, the consumer, purchasing coffee at Starbucks. Therefore , McDonald's introduced its own coffee-like beverages to lure you, the consumer, back into McDonalds. It's all part of a grand plan: McDonald's will soon be the only beverage purveyor left.

Starbucks, of late, has been relentlessly hobo-fying itself in order to attract the rubes and bumpkins who flock to America's finest coffee house, McDonald's. Hey rubes: now you can look at Miley Cyrus upskirt pix free, while drinking caffeine sugar!

Coffee science! Radiation danger! Sunscreen cancer! Nasty Kit Kats! Lap band death! And Gwyneth Paltrow's Paltry Workout for Palsy Patients! It's your health-filled Health Watch, where we watch your health—as Milo of Croton watched his!

McCafé, Mcdonald's superfluously-accented coffee-like beveragé, is a hugé success! Its popularity of McD's Frappés is lifting the entire company, and putting Starbucks in further peril. Congratulations on your poor tasté, America. [WSJ]

A new study found that caffeine addicts don't actually get an energy boost from their morning cup of coffee; instead, it just mitigates their withdrawal symptoms. Bullshit. Okay, fine, whatever...I'm not gonna debate you this early in the morning. [Reuters]

You there, citizen: is that coffee in your hand a Starbucks™ brand coffee? There is a 95% likelihood that it is not. That is unacceptable. Fear not; Starbucks™ brand coffee will soon be even more ubiquitous. More Starbucks. More!

Okay, here's what's happening in the coffee arena: it is bifurcating. Caffeine yuppieism can no longer be faked. As the high end coffee shops push prices into the stratosphere, Starbucks is—we regret to inform you—getting even more hobo.

New York's Cafe Grumpy has invented the $12 cup of coffee, "flavors you would expect in a really nice glass of wine—it's a cacophony of nuances." We must keep nuance out of our coffee. It could ruin America.

[Leslie Buck, the designer of the iconic Anthora coffee cup, died on Monday. His simple graphic became as potent a New York icon as Milton Glaser's "I Love New York" or the "Law & Order sound." Image via dblue's Flickr]

In an effort to help readers get more of the vital "cat shit" food group, the Times profiles "civet coffee" producers, who make the world's best brew by combing through the dung of the catlike civet for fermented coffee beans.

Gorilla Coffee—Park Slope coffee house and bean supplier to indie Brooklyn dripperies—appears to have suffered a total employee walk-out last night. What kind of sweatshop was their "oppressive hipster-in-chief" (a local blog's designation) running?

Starbucks Sumatra blend: "It's about the most adventurous thing you can do and still be at work by 9 a.m." Don't forget the cyanide. [Copyranter]

In this stunning new expose, we learn the shocking truth about Dave Grohl: he is a coffee addict. Fresh Pots!

Meet Stumptown Coffee, bastion of the "third wave" of American caffeine, wherein we chuck our totally corporate Starbucks cups and switch to independent cafes and underground dripperies that all buy their beans from the same snobby supplier.

Starbucks is ground zero for gun nuts now! Survivalists, modern-day militiamen, and muttering crazies all prefer Sbux-brand lattes! No longer will Starbucks be seen as a safe haven for liberal pussies! The shooting starts soon.

A short history: Starbucks owned upscale consumers. Then the recession hit. Upscale consumers disappeared. Starbucks weakened. McDonald's moved in to steal former Starbucks customers. Starbucks responded by going downscale. That seemed to work. Now: Starbucks plunges even further into hobodom.