Food: Starbucks Via

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm a Starbucks snob. Or rather, I prefer drinking Starbucks' brewed coffee over other big chains, like Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's. Their coffee tends to be fresher, and most of their shops are actually pretty relaxing to blog in (many Shangrila Towers posts are written in coffeehouses).

Then I heard they were releasing a line of instant coffee called "Via." A concession to the travails of the Great Recession?



I tried some of it this week. On one hand, it's easily the best instant coffee I've ever tasted. Each Via packet contains microground coffee in addition to the normal soluble coffee crystals; that means there's some brewing going on when you pour hot water on the stuff, helping to restore a little of the aroma and flavor back to the coffee. Via also has less of a metallic taste compared to other popular and well-liked instant brands like Taster's Choice.

On the other hand, it costs $10 for a pack of 12 servings. Taster's Choice can be had from the grocery store for about $1 for 6 servings. I liked Via, but not enough to pay five times the price of regular instant coffee. It just seems crazy to me - if you wanted to save money, you wouldn't buy such expensive instant coffee. If you wanted Starbucks-quality, you wouldn't get instant when you could have the fresh stuff for 50 cents more. Yeah, Via is more portable, but isn't there a Starbucks location on every street corner anyway?