Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands -and then eat just one of the pieces.

The cacao tree loves heat, but not the direct sun, so it does best when grown in the shadow of other trees.

It’s always great to be back in London, long one of my favorite cities, and one in which I immediately feel comfortable.  I am here for meetings, and upon my arrival received a text from my friend confirming our meeting and telling me that our rendezvous would be at the Starbucks in Leicester Square.

This is London’s flagship Starbucks, where I have been many times over the last seven or eight years, since Starbucks took over the Seattle Coffee Company in the mid-1990’s.  It is a big space, and I always thought that it would be difficult to make money given what must be huge rent in one of the most heavily trafficked spots in London.  But, as a marquee location for the brand, it is unbeatable and among the most visible retail locations in the world.

I exited the Tube and walked across the square and stopped in disbelief.  Starbucks was gone!  I walked around the square, and, sure enough, in its old place now is an upscale fish and chips restaurant.

I texted my friend and walked toward Piccadilly Circus where there is another smaller, Starbucks were we met.  We sat in the small Starbucks and discussed the implications.  He was as astonished as I that they had given up such a visible location. Starbucks has certainly been in the news recently with their many store closures, perhaps a thousand by several counts.

The closing of Leicester Square might be the result of those financial decisions.  The rent must certainly have been high. The flagship may have been their most visible store in London, but perhaps they are looking at a smarter, better, more cost-efficient way to maintain a presence in tough times, and the store towards Piccadilly Circus was certainly busy.

In my view, Starbucks has always thrived on using premier locations as advertising, spending relatively little money on actual ads.  And the Leicester Square location was indeed a flagship location. I wonder if this was a decision by the accountants focusing on short term costs at the expense of long term visibility.

For the sake of their brand, I hope that this is not one of those short sighted decisions.

Carob is a brown powder made from the pulverized fruit of a Mediterranean evergreen. Some consider carob an adequate substitute for chocolate because it has some similar nutrients (calcium, phosphorus), and because it can, when combined with vegetable fat and sugar, be made to approximate the color and consistency of chocolate. Of course, the same arguments can as persuasively be made in favor of dirt.

Chocolate and cocoa contain high levels of flavonoids, which may have beneficial cardiovascular effects on health.