A 12-year journey to visit every Starbucks on earth takes one coffee lover around the world and checking up on the man who once made coffee-loving ladies swoon.

Everyone has dreams in life. Texan Rafael Antonio Lozano, Jr.’s is to visit every Starbucks on the planet.

Lozano, who goes by the name ‘Winter’, is well on his way to accomplishing that goal. This week, he’s in the United Kingdom, making his way across England, Scotland, and Wales by visiting the 400 locations found there. He’ll then move on to “Starbuck” his way across Spain, Portugal, and Germany.

At every Starbucks he visits, Winter orders a brewed coffee and takes a photo that he posts to his blog, starbuckseverywhere.net. He’s been at the project since 1997 and has so far visited 9,100 locations, according to London’s The Daily Telegraph.

Winter says he has about 3,000 more locations to visit, but with the recent store closures and Starbucks’ financial issues, it’s often a guessing game to see if the store will still be there when he arrives.

“There’s huge uncertainty for me, as Starbucks does not announce which stores are shutting. I am highly motivated to get to them,” he said. “In this world it is difficult to do something unique — I just have found the whole process a great deal of fun.”

Be sure and check out the individual state and country listings on his site to see if Winter has dropped by your local Starbucks. I was surprised to find that not only did he visit the Starbucks inside the gorgeous Omni William Penn Hotel that I used to frequent almost daily while working in downtown Pittsburgh (a dark time in my life before I started writing this blog), but also the one my husband often stops at before work near our house.

A Coffee Couple of a different kind

Remember those Nescafe Taster’s Choice commercials from the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s that featured a sexy-voiced man inviting his neighbor in for a cup of coffee? That man’s name is Anthony Head, and though he’s best known for playing Giles on the hit series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the nameless character’s coffee-flavored innuendos earned him a spot in television advertising history both in the US and the UK.

The commercials first began airing in England in 1987 to sell Nescafe’s Gold Blend instant coffee. In 1990, the couple crossed the pond and put on American accents to start selling Taster’s Choice here in the states. Coffee-loving ladies everywhere swooned at Head’s sultry voice and waited breathlessly for the next installment of the couple’s flirtations.

NPR’s Weekend Edition has an interview from this past Saturday between Head and radio host Scott Simon in which they discuss Head’s current role on the BBC series The Invisibles, and of course, those Taster’s Choice commercials. You can relive the melodrama of both the British “Gold Blend” ads and the Taster’s Choice commercials on NPR’s website.

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