Starbucks Via 'Better than Most Instant Coffee,' But ...

March 4 was the launch date for Starbucks‘ new Via instant coffee, so, curious, I strolled over to my neighborhood Starbucks in the Seattle suburb where I live — only to have the barista tell me that only select Seattle-area stores had Via in stock. The rest of the region won’t get it for another couple weeks, he said.

But from what I can gather online, initial reaction to the new Via is generally favorable. It might not be great coffee, but it’s pretty good for instant, most early tasters seem to be saying. Here’s an overview:

The Chicago Sun-Times said most tasters were “lukewarm” about it. One woman elaborated, saying: “It didn’t taste very fresh. It didn’t have a strong coffee flavor. It was kind of watery.”

A blogger at ChicagoExaminer.com, who describes herself as a one-cup-a-day coffee drinker, was more upbeat. “I like it!!” she enthused. “It tastes pretty close to a cup of coffee to me.”

At the Chicago Tribune, a tasting panel that included a restaurant critic praised Via, calling it “surprisingly bold and complex,” “nice and strong tasting but a little thin,” “totally acceptable, especially if I were in a rush,” and “really good if a little on the burned side.”

At Fast Company, tasters actually preferred instant Via to regular brewed Starbucks: “Tasters raved about its flavor (’balanced, not bitter’), texture (’by far the smoothest’), and aroma (’smells like fancy coffee’). And one called it – irony alert! – ‘better than the coffee you buy in Starbucks.’”

And at WalletPop.com, reviews were mixed, with one taster calling it “as good as ’slightly stale regular coffee … not too bad, better than most instant coffee, which typically tastes like hot water with coffee flavoring. Starbucks instant tastes like real coffee, albeit slightly stale real coffee.’”

Meanwhile, here in the Coffee Capital, Seattle Weekly found a staffer who actually drinks instant coffee regularly (infidel). His take: “marginally superior to Folger’s or Taster’s Choice. A little rounder and more full-bodied. But somehow also manages to be more bitter and burnt-tasting.”

But at roughly a dollar a cup, it also manages to be “over 10 times the price of other instants, which come in at closer to 8 cents a cup,” the taster complained. As a result, he’s going to stick with “my mountain-grown, fill-it-to-the-rim, best-part-of-waking-up, coffee crystals.”