Game of Thrones Season 8 had its fair share of troubles throughout its run, though few things were as talked about as much as the Starbucks coffee cup. The error has been meme'd and criticized for months, and Starbucks has had lots of free publicity for the blooper this entire time. Now, come to find out, the cup wasn't from the well-known coffee company after all!
The coffee cup did not belong to Starbucks, but instead a Belfast-owned company named Established Coffee. The information comes from the Season 8 commentary track (via Comicbook.com) in which showrunners Dan Weiss and David Benioff talked about the incident. The two also managed to point a finger at Emilia Clarke for the controversy, who said the bus they had thrown her under was quite heavy.
Established Coffee is much smaller than Starbucks by a long shot, so it's understandable why people would mistake it for the brand with wider recognition. While Established Coffee may have missed out on the initial wave of publicity, hopefully the shop can capitalize now that the record has been set straight and we know that it is the official coffee chain of Westeros.
A title like that may not mean much in the fictional world of Game of Thrones, but it may mean something to fans. Those who sign up for the Game of Thrones vacation experience now may feel obligated to drink coffee at the same place that was featured in the HBO show. After all, people love to hang out on Friends' Central Perk set and pop-up shops that replicate the experience, why would this be any different?
Meanwhile, the debate rages on in regards to which Game of Thrones cast member left their coffee cup on the table during the now-infamous scene. While there are still a fair number of fans and cast who seem to think it was Emilia Clarke who left her drink out before the cameras started rolling, Clarke recently said that actor Conelith Hill revealed that it had been his all along. Is Clarke telling the truth, or has the "mad queen" spun a tale to keep fans and friends from giving her more guff?
The short answer is, it doesn't really matter. Season 8 of Game of Thrones had far more glaring issues that over-shadowed this one, easily edited-out, mistake, which may be why the coffee cup continues to have relevance long after the show's end. Why get into a big argument about lighting issues and plot lines when one can simply mention the lack of attention shown in order to get a modern coffee cup out of a pivotal scene?
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