Alltop.com

I tried it. It's pretty good, actually. Not as good as Italian Roast freshly brewed, however, better than any other instant coffee available. It's easy to throw in the pocket for a quick cup anywhere h2o and a microwave exist! Pretty cool.

I have not tried it but ... there is no way instant coffee can be considered coffee. Do some a little research on how instant coffee is made and you'll understand.

Further proof they've always been about sacrificing quality for experience. That's a fine position to take, but they need to stop pretending otherwise.

You know how they could solve their water problem from a month ago? Train their baristas to pour spoonless - it's a higher quality anyway.

If marketing people don't like it, its bound to be successful!

Good discussion, and thanks for the head-nod, Guy. There’s a pretty amazing story behind the product, actually. A customer, who was a full-time engineer, partly invented the process and took it into the Pike Place store in the early 1990s. The manager their told Howard Schultz, who was so impressed we hired him to be the R&D department. Many good things came from that original technology (like the Frappuccino), but we couldn't get the instant coffee right.

The major breakthrough for that really came in just the last year or two, so we can finally now introduce a coffee that is real coffee, just in this format.

BTW, the original technologist was named Don Valencia, which is one of the reasons we chose the name VIA, in honor of his contribution.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, hope you found it worthwhile. Love to hear what you think about the coffee. We'll have a feedback mechanism on the site itself starting 3/3. http://www.starbucks.com/VIA

Matthew Guiste
Starbucks

Still waiting for mine.... Did it come with the pencil too?

I was a bit surprised when you were passing samples out at SXSW (you used my key to open the boxes ;-) ). Looks like you're a convert.