14 DAY TRIAL // 42-year-old Rafael Winter from Houston, Texas, can put pretty much all self-proclaimed coffee lovers in the world to shame. In fact, he's kind of already done it.
In a nutshell, this computer programmer has until now visited as many as 11,676 Starbucks shops scattered across an impressive 38 countries, and has ordered himself a cup of coffee in each and every one of them.
The 42-year-old details that he has until now drank Starbucks coffee in London, New York, Egypt, Paris, Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Japan and all sorts of other more exotic locations.
In case anyone was wondering, the 11,676 cups of Starbucks coffee he has until now bought and gulped down have left him about $160,000 (€126,228) short.
A man on a mission
According to Oddity Central, 42-year-old Rafael Lozano has made it his life's goal to have coffee at each and every Starbucks shop in the world. This is the reason he is now spending about 25% of his income on traveling the globe and drinking coffee.
The coffee enthusiast might have visited over 11,000 Starbucks shops so far, but as it turns out, his work is far from over. On the contrary, he still has about 10,000 more to go.
Thus, Starbucks currently owns and operates as many as 23,305 coffee establishments in 65 countries and territories across the globe. Besides, new ones are popping up faster than you can say “caffeine-induced heart attack.”
Hence, Rafael Lozano will most definitely fail to visit all the Starbucks shops in this world before he kicks the bucket. However, he has no intention to give up on this little project of his. Not when this endeavor offers him the perfect excuse to travel and see the world.
“I do not expect to ever complete the project, as I have every reason to think that Starbucks will outlive me,” the man told the press in an interview. “As long as there are new stores to visit, I will try to visit them,” he went on to say.
How it all started
The 42-year-old coffee lover is understood to have visited his first Starbucks shop ever back in 1997. Soon enough, he started wondering what it would be like to enjoy a caffeinated beverage at each and every such establishment in the world.
One thing led to another, and Rafael Winter eventually decided that, since nobody else was going to embark on such an endeavor, he might as well turn this idea into this life's goal. At first, he considered visiting all the Starbucks in the US alone. However, he eventually settled on going global.
“It was a completely random idea that came to me when I was in Plano, Texas while discussing the growth of Starbucks in the greater Dallas area. It was just a hypothetical question. I wondered, ‘Would it be possible to visit them all?’ Most people would leave it as a hypothetical question, but I figured, why not?”
“I became a freelance computer programmer around the same time, and although it wasn’t to pursue the Starbucks mission, it certainly gave me more freedom to carry on with the challenge,” the man explained in a statement.
Not at all surprisingly, Starbucks is all too familiar with Rafael Winter's project, and would love nothing more than to see him complete this task that he set out for himself. “Winter demonstrates great enthusiasm for the Starbucks experience and we’re flattered by his passion,” a company spokesperson said not too long ago.
Apparently, Starbucks is utterly oblivious to the fact that, as surprising as this may sound, 42-year-old Rafael Winter actually prefers drinking coffee bought from independent stores and that the only thing he likes about the coffee made and marketed by this company is the fact that it tastes the same in every country.
