Steve Mays
Taisir Yanis
On Tuesday, Starbucks unveiled instant coffee bearing the Starbucks brand. Packages of Via Ready Brew will appear in Starbucks shops in Seattle and Chicago on March 3, the same day that Starbucks will begin offering breakfast value meals in stores nationwide.
“We are going to reinvent the company, reinvent the category,” Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz told a group of Wall Street analysts, journalists and retailers on Tuesday at a tasting of the new product in New York. “This is not your mother’s instant coffee.”
When asked about the bold marketing move, Taisir Yanis, proprietor of Yanis Coffee Zone in Jefferson City, Missouri snarked, "You want instant coffee? Boom! Here's your coffee. Next!" [Thanks to Greg Perry]
