Starbucks Reporters, Remember the Memo!

07/21/07 - 08:05 AM EDT

Marek Fuchs

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Mae West once said: "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful." To which The Business Press Maven would like to add: "Too much of a bad thing can be this week's Starbucks(SBUX Quote - Cramer on SBUX - Stock Picks) coverage."

About every last drop of it gets this week's dreaded Business Press Maven "Back of the Hand" award.

I mean, did I stutter when I made the point back around Valentine's Day that everything the company does in the next bit of history must be seen through the prism of "the Memo"?

Which memo? Well, there is only one ... and everything that happens to Starbucks for the rest of the year should be set against it, seen as either confirming the contents of the Memo or confirming that it's what some at Starbucks claimed it was after it leaked out: a de rigueur attempt at motivation from a master.

That is the only way this story can be told, at least if savvy investors want any sense of how it might end.

You remember -- don't go telling me you don't -- the memo that company CEO and spiritual leader Howard Schultz wrote saying that Starbucks, for which he has evangelical fervor, was losing its way. The spirit of the stores, he wrote upper management in a memo that was quickly leaked to the public, was gone -- right down to the waft of fresh-brewed coffee.

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