Howard Schultz claims that after 26 years with Starbucks, the world's largest coffee retailer, his blood runs brown. He drinks five cups of coffee a day and his favourite drink is the double-shot non-fat latte, three-quarters full.

The love affair with coffee dates back to 1981: he was living in New York and selling plastic Swedish housewares when he noticed that a small retailer in Seattle that sold only whole-bean coffee was buying an unusual amount of plastic coffee filters. He went to investigate, fell for both the coffee and the company, and ignored his mother's advice to stick with the well-paying job he had.