Starbucks New Via: Cut the Baristas Off at the Knees
If you went into Starbucks last week someone wearing an orange apron with two cups of coffee was probably there to greet you and suggest you try their new Taste Challenge. The challenge of course was to avoid eye contact and not be asked about the taste challenge. I was in Starbucks for early morning coffee with several friends last week which meant I got to keep an eye out for the response of the crowd as well as take the taste challenge myself. I have some strong feelings about coffee, Starbucks, and Via. I hope to address those in this post, and I hope you have the patience to read through this diatribe.
Coffee, as you might expect is the topic of this blog, so I feel like I should quickly state that I have a real problem with the roasted beans that Starbucks serves to customers. Firstly: they’re all over roasted in my opinion. The dark roasts that they serve as espresso in various drinks are great for espresso, but mediocre for drip coffee (which they sell as the comparison for Via). This is good for sugary, syrupy, flavored drinks because ashy beans pair well with sugar because they don’t pollute the flavor of the vanilla, hazelnut, orange or whatever flavor you have pumped into your cup. As a drip coffee its more likely to taste like burnt coffee and be devoid of many of the oils that carry flavor to the olfactory sensors. An Ethiopian Harrar may taste of blueberries when roasted properly. Its naturally sweet, naturally occurring, and would ruin the Vanilla syrup that you pumped into the cup just before pouring in espresso made of Harrar. So Starbucks coffee is not up to the task of being described as good drip coffee, which means comparing it to Via ‘ready brew’ (AKA instant) coffee is like comparing one bad thing to another: you might not be able to tell the difference, but you probably wont’ care.
Starbucks has been about the barista-lead experience of custom fru-fru drinks (flavored, frothed and foamed) to taste more like a dessert beverage than coffee. They have a very consistent product, which is important, but they also make customers feel like they get what they want: their way. The experience sells the coffee, the sugar makes it addictive, and the customer comes back daily, weekly, monthly or several times a day. It helps that Americans feel like they deserve a treat so often. Starbucks is not just a brand name, its a brand experience that is available on corner after corner of American (and world) streets. They come across as a coffee house, but they’re not about the coffee: they’re about the experience masquerading as coffee.
Via is the real problem for me. I get why people go to Starbucks, I get why people drink coffee, I don’t get why Starbucks is pushing Via. From a marketing standpoint its incongruous and it doesn’t build on the brand’s message of service, it says, “Make it yourself, our overpriced coffee is just as bad as the instant coffee.” Sure, they’re not marketing it that way, they don’t want you to think of it as instant. They don’t want you to think of it as subverting the brand, but continuing the brand, but if a barista is paid $10.00 an hour (or possibly more or possibly less) to make a custom, special coffee for me so that I can have the Starbucks experience how does that compare, for a second, to powdered coffee product I can pour into hot or cold water?! Via is about 33 cents a packet (with water being valued at close to free in this estimation). This means that I can basically have a cup of Via coffee for about 35 cents if you really feel that your tap water is costing you 2 cents. I pay $1.50 for a ‘tall’ cup of coffee, almost four times the taste value of Via – which tastes the same according to burnt bean taste challenge drinker after burnt bean taste challenge drinker. If I were a barista at Starbucks I would outright refuse to even suggest the challenge let alone place it on a shelf prominently in front of customers to try to get rid of my job.
Is Via a bad product? Not if you like take-anywhere coffee products and are not a discriminating consumer. But its the entire message of the product that I don’t get. Why would you drink burnt coffee instead of tasty coffee? Why doesn’t Starbucks make a Sulawesi Via with powerful flavors in the coffee? Why not make the price of the Via higher so that the barista’s job is not compromised? Why not just forgo the ready brew mess in the first place and keep impressing customers with the experience? What’s your take? Is Starbucks about experience or product first for you? Would you ask for a cup of hot water (which my local Starbucks said they would not charge me for – I just called and asked) and then pour a 33 cent packet of Via in it in front of a barista? I’m not digging the challenge of the taste, the challenge of the product, and the challenge to the employees that Via brings. Just say no to powdered instant coffee, and just say no to higher unemployment rates.
- 9 Oct 2009
- Category: Coffee
- Author: Randy
- { Comments } 0
