"VIA ready brew" news and stories

Starbucks VIA Photo: Starbucks

Starbucks is now ready on demand. The coffee giant expanded its empire Tuesday with VIA, its version of "Ready Brew" instant coffee. Available in Colombian roast or bolder Italian roast, the packets of powdered coffee are sold in packages of three for $2.95.

After two decades of development, Starbucks is so certain consumers will like it that it's pitting VIA up against its whole-bean coffee, asking consumers if they can taste the difference.

"I think it takes great courage for us to take our brand name -- which we value more than anything in the world -- and put it on an instant coffee," CEO Howard Schultz said at a Starbucks VIA Ready Brew launch event Tuesday. "That's not a move of desperation, that's a move of confidence and the fact that we know this coffee will pass the test of time."

Back in March, Slashfood did a taste test and we were "pleasantly surprised" by the flavor. More recently, we did a side-by-side comparison and found the results to be similar. There's no doubt that a freshly brewed cup of coffee takes the cake, but after a recent instant coffee taste test (that we're still recovering from), we would be more than happy to sip VIA.

Find out where VIA is available and how you can get a free sample after the jump.

God knows, I resisted. The bizarre news that Starbucks will soon be releasing "VIA Ready Brew," an instant coffee line has been in the news for a few days now, but I've fought the temptation to attack the coffee retailer. After all, while I'm not a fan of Starbucks, there isn't really any joy in watching a company that built its reputation on the cafe experience sell out its customers for a quick buck. Mediocrity is depressing, even when it is undertaken by a huge, menacing corporation.

It's not like this hasn't been in the cards for a while. After all, the Starbucks marketing leviathan has long since squeezed out numerous independent retailers with its insane market saturation. Along the way, they have sold pretty much everything related to the coffee experience, from mugs to t-shirts, truffles to beans. In the past few years, the name "Starbucks" has become to coffee what McDonald's is to hamburgers, Kleenex is to tissues, and Roto Rooter is to septic systems: it is almost a generic term for a completely commodified service.

Still, I managed to resist the urge to attack Starbucks as they take this final step on the road to self-parody. However, when the company's CEO, Howard Schultz, tried to justify the decision in an editorial on the Huffington Post, I couldn't hold back any longer. Anyone who enjoys watching a corporate tool use self-important business-speak to justify an untenable decision should definitely give it a peek. Schultz begins with a brief analysis of the huge instant coffee market, followed by an explanation of how the chain's core audience will love the new product line. For a final flourish, Schultz ends with a strangely out-of-touch analysis of the company's patrons.