I don't know how most people feel about Starbucks attempt to push instant coffee through its Via brand, but I am going to have to give it a lukewarm response.
I am an avid Starbucks devotee and probably always will be. The reason I love their coffee is because it is always bold (some would say burnt). I go there for this strong taste. So when you suggest instant coffee can give me the same taste I am instantly suspicious.
Instant coffee brings up images of what my non-coffee drinking parents kept around the house when we were kids for those who would come over and need a caffeine fix. It looked a lot like this:
I shutter every time I see this image. So this image is what I carried into my "Via Challenge". Needless to say, they were behind the ball from the get go. So I took their Pepsiesque challenge. At first I wasn't sure of the difference, but then I sensed something that deeply disturbed me, it was the watered down coffee taste I feared from the start.
Starbucks does so many things well. I am not calling Via a tragedy, but I just don't see how this fits the Starbucks business model of a high-end coffee experience with top quality coffee that you can't always get at home.
What do you think? Did you take the challenge?
4 comments:
I think Via was the first Starbucks drink where I actually tasted coffee and not burnt, bitter blah. But that aside, I do agree this doesn't fit with their image. Instant coffee will never be yuppie.
I'm going to do my own Via challenge with my Folgers loving parents and get back to you.
Jodi,
I am curious what they will think. Maybe you should just slip it in the mix when they aren't looking. Although this is still a battle over instant coffee and I am not sure if the winner of that battle matters. It's still instant coffee.
Dark Roasted
Just another failed attempt from starbucks to makes this stuff popular outside their coffee shops.
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