Although people everywhere seem to enjoy drinking coffee，they don't all have the same coffee culture. In Europe for example, coffee shops are common places for people to meet friends while they drink coffee. On the other hand, places like this were not as common in North America in the past. Instead, people in North America liked to drink coffee in their homes with friends. The coffee culture in the USA changed, when Starbucks (星巴克) coffee shops spread throughout the country．

    The first Starbucks coffee shop opened in 1971 in downtown Seattle, Washington，in the USA. It was a small coffee shop that cooked its own coffee beans. The coffee shop's business did well, and by 1981 there were three Starbucks stores in Seattle.

    Things really began to change for the company in 1981. That year, Howard Schultz met the three men who ran Starbucks. Schultz worked in New York for a company that made kitchen equipment (设备) . He noticed that Starbucks ordered a large number of special coffee makers, which caused his great interest. Schultz went to Seattle to see what Starbucks did. In 1982, the original Starbucks owners hired Schultz as the company's head of marketing (市场营销).

    In 1983, Schultz traveled to Italy. The special environment of the espresso (浓咖啡) bars there caught his eyes. Back in the USA, Schultz created an environment for Starbucks coffee shops that was comfortable and casual, and customers everywhere seemed to like it. Starbucks began opening more stores in the USA. Then the company opened coffee shops in other countries as well. Today, there are more than 16,000 Starbucks coffee shops all over the world.

    However，that does not mean Starbucks has not had problems. In fact, many Starbucks stores have closed over the past few years. On the one hand, this is because there were too many coffee shops competing (竞争) for business in one small area. On the other hand, stores in some countries closed because the coffee culture there did not match with the comfortable environment offered by Starbucks.