[Avodah] Starbucks coffee and nosein ta'am

[Micha Berger via Avodah]

Over on Areivim, we were yet again discussing the cRc's position that
one should not buy coffee from a full Starbucks store that sells food.

Here's my take, cut-n-pasted from what I posted there.


... There is a lot of ham and bacon at
https://www.starbucks.com/menu/catalog/product?food=hot-breakfast
and poultry at
https://www.starbucks.com/menu/catalog/product?food=sandwiches-panini-and-wraps

The cRc's statement refers to these in particular
<http://www.crcweb.org/starbucks_overview.php>. It also questions your
assumption of the ubiquitous use of soap:

                         Chicago Rabbinical Council
                        Guide to Starbucks Beverages

                            May 2013 / June 2015

   ...
   As said, Starbucks shops serve many kosher and non-kosher items,
   with the most serious non-kosher item being hot meat sandwiches. The
   standard daily clean-up at Starbucks includes a hot wash of all
   utensils and some parts of that washing are done without soap. This
   clean up process significantly challenges the kosher status of
   the otherwise kosher products and each product must be judged by
   a competent halachic authority. The cRc has made available their
   detailed review and analysis of this topic in the spring 2011
   edition of The Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society and
   that article can be found below. Click here to read this article.
   <http://www.crcweb.org/Starbucks%20cRc%20Full%20Article%20April%202011.pdf>

   The good news is that there are many Starbucks locations that do not
   serve hot meat sandwiches. These are generally the Starbucks kiosks
   which can be defined as a Starbucks location, usually found in a mall,
   retail store, a bus or train station or airport, that does not sell
   hot sandwiches. The cRc is comfortable recommending any drink made from
   kosher ingredients (even though some others use ingredients that may
   not be kosher).

   This list is accurate at this time for stores in the United States
   based on two and a half years of extensive research and consultation
   with the cRc's Av Beth Din, Rav Schwartz, shlit"a....

Personally, I doubt any Starbucks with an A rating from the health
department actually puts dishes in hot water without soap with enough
regularity that you have to worry about the possibility WRT kashrus. And
that is consistent with the lenient majority. We're trying to understand
the cRc's ruling.

There is no derabbanan here[, to justify another poster's invocation
of safeiq derabbanan]. They're saying that the odds of your cup being
washed without soap with a plate that held hot bacon or tereifah chicken
is high enough that one needs to avoid taking that risk. But that's real
nosein ta'am of an issur de'oraisa.


On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 5:56pm +0300 someone wrote to Areivim, on a discussion
of the cRc's ruling against
: I don't drink coffee at all, so I'm not a frequent Starbucks customer, but
: I suspect that a sandwich like
: https://www.starbucks.com/menu/food/sandwiches-panini-and-wraps/chicken-blt-salad-sandwich?foodZone=9999
: is probably at least 1/60th chicken or bacon.

The one bit of kashrus I don't "get" is how grossly we overestimate
the size of a taam of something. We require bitul beshishim of the
volume, because this is the only way to guarantee bitul beshishim of the
ta'am? Are we saying that a pot that gained so little taam basar so as
to show the same weight on a food scale may have picked up so much meat
that we should use the volume of the pot to guarantee bitul?

GCT!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The fittingness of your matzos [for the seder]
micha at aishdas.org        isn't complete with being careful in the laws
http://www.aishdas.org   of Passover. One must also be very careful in
Fax: (270) 514-1507      the laws of business.    - Rav Yisrael Salanter