Instant Coffee, Starbucks Style

I was surprised and delighted to receive a 2-pack of Starbucks VIA Ready Brew in the mail yesterday. I've been eager to try it, as I've heard from friends and former co-workers that it's quite good.

Instant coffee has never been anything like a regular part of my personal beverage portfolio. I can remember my dad making really instant coffee--his preferred method was to dissolve the powder in tap water then heat the mixture in the microwave oven, presumably to a ready-to-drink temperature, not wanting to be bothered to actually heat the water. Adults do strange things.

A trip to India to visit tea gardens provided another instant memory, as well as providing insight into the mind of the coffee drinker. Our guide for part of the trip, a very charming veteran of the tea business, was a coffee drinker. So even when we were staying in the house at the tea garden itself, where the fragrance of freshly fermented and delicious tea hung in the air, he demanded coffee each morning. It was clear from where the jar of crystals was kept, how long it took the host to find it and the condition of the jar that he was the only coffee drinker around, and that he had likely been served from that same jar for several years. We asked him how he could pass up such delicious tea in favor of clearly lousy coffee, he said simply, "I am a coffee drinker."

So instant coffee isn't something I've ever drunk --I've tasted it over the years, mostly in the context of work. I was not much of a coffee drinker before discovering specialty coffee in the mid-80s, shortly before I began working for Starbucks. So to me, the typical instant coffee simply isn't coffee. It may be warm, brown and occasionally drinkable, but it fundamentally doesn't taste like coffee. Its aroma is more like sweet cooked grain of some sort than it is like coffee. The flavor is vaguely sweet and toasty, but not what I think of as coffee.

The idea of a truly good-tasting instant coffee is certainly intriguing, and I never had any philosophical opposition to it. I was aware of and vaguely on the periphery of some of the early work done on instant coffee at Starbucks. The full flavor and high quality of every coffee in the Starbucks lineup created an enormous challenge, especially if matching the taste of fresh-brewed was the goal.

I'm not privy to what I would call the "sausage-making" aspect of the birth of VIA, and could not write about it if I was. So my reactions to what I received in the mail yesterday simply reflect my views as a guy who loves coffee and is more educated about coffee than the average consumer. (I honestly don't now how soluble coffee is made well enough to describe the process in a way that would be illuminating.)

OK, to start with, I was struck by the fact that the most eye-grabbing element on the mailer is the word INSTANT--all caps, bigger font than anything else. There is also a small Starbucks logo and a slightly larger "Starbucks VIA Ready Brew" identifier--since it's just plain text, I won't use the word "logo." The ingredients of the product are soluble coffee and microground coffee.

So...how did it taste? The packet contained one "stick" each of Italian Roast and Colombia. I tried the Italian Roast first because everyone I've spoken to both inside and outside Starbucks told me this was the better of the two offerings.

The first thing I noticed was the aroma, which was very pleasant, thanks to the presence of the microground coffee, an addition to the product that no doubt adds cost but makes it look and smell more like coffee. That great aroma disappeared pretty much immediately when I added the hot water; it was replaced with the smell that to me is instantly recognizable as soluble coffee. It was augmented by the smell of the microground coffee mixed with the hot water...which is NOT the same smell as the in-the-cup smell of freshly brewed coffee. Flavor-wise, I was surprised by the sharp/bitter taste of the coffee, and as it cooled, by the presence of some acidity in the cup. Both of these may sound bad, but they are very unusual in an instant coffee product. The bottom line for me: way above average for instant coffee, but not a match or substitute for fresh-brewed.

The Colombia smelled worse but in some ways tasted better. It was not the Starbucks Colombia I have known over the years, by any stretch. But because it's not a dark roast like the Italian (at least I assume that's what accounts for the difference), there is in some ways a fuller range of coffee flavor in the Colombia. It's clearly more lively and acidic than the Italian, so in that sense it's a more "complete" cup. However...it's not the cup for me. As impressive as it is to have this much coffee flavor in a soluble product, it doesn't hit the mark for me as a) fresh-brewed or b) the taste of Starbucks I know and love.

Even so, these are the best-tasting instant coffees I've ever had.

This post is already close to the length at which an apology is normally made. So I'll save thoughts on when I might use VIA, the value proposition and other observations for another time.