Winter is a man with a mission: he intends to visit every Starbucks coffee shop on the planet.

The freelance software engineer has already been to more than 9,100 — and tomorrow he is due to arrive in London to polish off the outstanding 400 or so in England, Scotland and Wales that he has yet to visit.

Winter, 37, (he changed his name to just “Winter” from Rafael Antonio Lozano Jr), decided 12 years ago that his project in life was to drink a cup of coffee in every Starbucks in the world. But his mission has been torpedoed by the struggling company’s decision to start closing premises.

He is now rushing to tick coffee shops off his list before they shut.

He started a grand European tour across Ireland this week and after a month or so in the UK will move on to Spain, Portugal, Germany and perhaps Romania for another month of “Starbucking”. He calculates that he has more than 3,000 shops around the world still to visit.

His rules are simple. He has to drink a cup of coffee in every shop he visits, usually a 4oz tester cup of regular brewed coffee, and takes a picture and puts it on his website, starbuckseverywhere.net. He does not visit franchise shops, so a Starbucks coffee shop in the local Sainsbury’s does not interest him.

Winter, who admits he has mild obsessive-compulsive tendencies, was working as a computer programmer in Texas in 1997 and used to spend time at the local Starbucks when he hit on the idea of visiting every one.

At that time, Starbucks had about 1,400 coffee shops. The numbers then exploded in the US and internationally, leaving him with a much more daunting task.

Now he is faced with the opposite problem. With profits badly hit by the recession, the US coffee company has announced plans to close about 960 shops globally. Since July it has shut 507 in the US and 64 shops in other countries.

Winter said that he was in a race against time, adding that he had found out that one shop in London had closed before he could get there.

“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.”

He calculates that he has spent about $100,000 (£63,000) on his project in the past 12 years. He spends about three months a year Starbucking, often driving thousands of miles across the US and sleeping in his car. He can average about 20 shops a day with good planning.

Once he drank 29 coffees in one day. “I felt awful,” he said.

When not travelling for his freelance computer engineering work, playing in Scrabble tournaments or drinking coffee, he lives with his parents in Houston. They do not approve of their son’s mission. His mother, Georgina Lozano, told the Wall Street Journal: “My husband and I feel it’s a waste of time.”

He has visited England twice, getting as far north as Chester. He reckons that he has about 64 coffee shops to visit in Central London and another 30 in Greater London before he needs to hire a car and set out across the country.

“I’m hoping to be finished in a month,” he said. “From the UK, I am going to Spain, or Portugal if I determine it’s cheap enough to visit the four stores there . . . I really want to hit Prague, and maybe Romania.”

Winter has no official connection with Starbucks. He said he was not even much of a coffee connoisseur. “I like Starbucks coffee. It is amazingly consistent. When I am travelling, it tastes the same wherever you go.”

He said that he only drank the regular brand coffee. “My project is not about the coffee, it’s about the experience,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Starbucks said: “Winter demonstrates a great enthusiasm for the Starbucks experience. It’s flattering to learn about his passion for Starbucks coffee.”

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