by Melody on September 5, 2010
Starbucks has announced that coming soon they will be adding flavored Via Ready Brew to the current line up of Via Ready Brew offerings available in store. This new flavored Via will be offered in four flavors: Mocha, Vanilla, Caramel, and Cinnamon Spice. Gossip is that this new product goes on sale in stores in the middle of October. Further gossip about this product includes that beginning mid-October, with the purchase of the largest size of any Via Ready Brew, one can get a free tall beverage under MyStarbucksRewards. One important word of caution here: The free tall beverage offering is just very loose gossip that I’ve heard and it has definitely not been confirmed by Starbucks. If I turn out to be totally wrong on that, I’ve given you fair warning that it was just guessing and gossip.
I haven’t yet tried this product which is one of the reasons I haven’t said very much about it. It’s a little bit tougher to get excited about a product when you simply don’t have a clue what it will taste like. I don’t totally object to the idea of flavored Via, but my gut tells me this would be better offered as part of the consumer products group of grocery store items. There previously had been tales of high pressure on baristas to sell Via, and I hope very much not to see or hear a repeat of that episode from about one year ago. For those that do not recall, Via Ready Brew was soft-launched in Seattle in March of 2009, and then a national launch in the U.S. in September 2009, with a slow expansion to the international markets since then. Via was launched in Japan April of 2010. When Via was launched in Japan, that market received a wide variety of really cool Via merchandise, including a Via Bearista Bear! It’s worth taking a look at their fun merchandise: (Please note, Via is called Via Coffee Essence in Japan, and not Via Ready Brew, but it is the same product).
Starbucks Via Coffee Essence merchandise in Japan
I’ve talked about Via Ready Brew several times in this blog, and you can find all the Via related blog posts by click on this link here:
StarbucksMelody.com Categories – Via Ready Brew
I’ve heard gossip that the Mocha flavored Via is described as a bittersweet cocoa flavor with a touch of vanilla. Cinnamon Spice is described as a cinnamon flavor with a hint of ginger and other spices. It sounds like they could be yummy. However I can’t reach a verdict until I’ve sampled these new offerings, and truthfully I probably have at least a month to wait before that will happen.
The floor is open to your thoughts about flavored Via Ready Brew.
by Melody on July 25, 2010
by Melody on May 28, 2010
I’ve been talking about Iced Via by Starbucks for a whole month. This is not the same thing as the current versions of Via Ready Brew available at your local Starbucks store or local Costco and grocery store. Iced Via is a pre-sweetened version, designed to be consumed cold, dissolving easily. Each individual packet is described as “lightly sweetened” and I have heard gossip that this translates into 22 grams of sugar per packet. The single serving packet is designed to be mixed with 16 ounces of water.
More gossip, so I hear, is that this actually will start to sell in the stores some time in early July, though it is arriving now in stores for partners to try. Apparently it just arrives in the normal roasting plant order.
To be honest, I haven’t tried this new product though I’ve been very aware of it for some time. I think there could have been fun opportunities for Starbucks to do tasting events centered around Iced Via Ready Brew, but if there were such things (only in my wild imagination) I am unaware of it. I have heard of a few isolated packets of this product making its way into non-partner hands, though I am not so lucky.
I think I read one partner describe the product’s appearance as looking like ‘salt and pepper’ inside the packet since the coffee is dark, and the sugar is obviously white.
I’m hoping some of my readers have tried it and can weigh in on it. Also, I slightly wonder what kind of volume Starbucks expects to sell. When Via was launched, there had been quite a push to sell a large volume of the product. If Seattle’s summer doesn’t finally warm up soon, I’ll be sticking with a nice hot cup of coffee. May’s weather has been down right dreary for the most part. Iced coffee doesn’t even sound very good right now. And there is still the real question of whether we’ll be seeing baristas wearing Iced Via earrings!
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Update on May 30, 2010:
I finally got my hands on one single packet of Iced Via to try. Here’s my report: The partner who said to me, “This is Seattle’s answer to the South’s sweet tea” nailed it. It’s exactly what sweet tea would be when it grows up to be coffee. It is sweet, but not too sweet for me, and it is refreshing. It dissolves really well! I love it! I will definitely buy this in July, when it’s annoyingly hot, and complaining that at 80 degrees, I can’t stand it, and want to die. By July I’ll be begging for 60 degrees to come back to Seattle, as it is today. The photos from today’s taste test (sorry the quality is poor, I used my cell phone) -
by Melody on May 21, 2010
When it comes to merchandise for Via Ready Brew, Starbucks Japan is the mother-lode. They got all the cool schwag. It’s unbelievable. I’m so jealous and I do not understand why Starbucks plans tons of cool merchandise for Japan, but here in Seattle, we’re left out in the cold and rain. Thanks to Noboru Sakamoto the most famous Starbucks customer in Japan, StarbucksMelody gets a chance to show this merchandise off to you. Mostly this blog post is one big “how cool is that” blog entry. Remember, in Japan, Starbucks Via Ready Brew is actually called Starbucks Via Coffee Essence. It’s the same product as what we have all over the United States, just a different name.
Just a short background about this product: it was first launched in Seattle and Chicago only in March of 2009. On September 29, 2009, Starbucks launched Via throughout the United States and Canada. Also, on March 25, 2009, selected London Starbucks locations received it. The launch of Via in Japan was April 14, 2010. I covered a blog entry on it here:
I owe lots of thanks to Noboru Sakamoto for sending me some cool merchandise from Japan.
I have written about Via as blog posts so many times that the easiest way to browse them all is by using the “categories” tab. Be sure to read the blog post on the forthcoming product which is a pre-sweetened Iced Via. Here is the link to all of the Via blog posts:
Starbucks “Via” posts
The 12 ounce tumbler featured below is one single tumbler with one side of it as Columbia and the other side as Italian Roast. It almost looks like I am featuring two different tumblers so I thought I would clarify that is just one item. There are even cell phone accessories! Very cute!
So what is your prized Via schwag item,or your favorite Via Ready Brew story? What do you think of it?
Starbucks has announced that coming soon they will be adding flavored Via Ready Brew to the current line up of Via Ready Brew offerings available in store. This new flavored Via will be offered in four flavors: Mocha, Vanilla, Caramel, and Cinnamon Spice. Gossip is that this new product goes on sale in stores in the middle of October. Further gossip about this product includes that beginning mid-October, with the purchase of the largest size of any Via Ready Brew, one can get a free tall beverage under MyStarbucksRewards. One important word of caution here: The free tall beverage offering is just very loose gossip that I’ve heard and it has definitely not been confirmed by Starbucks. If I turn out to be totally wrong on that, I’ve given you fair warning that it was just guessing and gossip.
yes I like VIA it’s great to keep in my desk for when I can’t get away, and it’s much better than the flavia nonsense they try and...