Starbucks has introduced a new Blonde Roast coffee into their lineup: It is called Bright Sky Blend. I found it at a Target store, and of course had to pick up a bag of it to take home. I wanted to do a fair “taste and compare” style tasting, so I took this coffee to University Village 3 Starbucks this morning. Jen (the store manager), Steph (a store partner and coffee master), and I tried both Veranda Blend and Bright Sky Blend made with a pour over and compared the two.
We definitely had fun. Both Jen and Steph were really excited to try something new. I knew that if I took it to Starbucks to do a coffee tasting, I’d get a much better comparison than if I tried this at home – I’m never as perfect at measuring out the proportion of coffee like Starbucks baristas, and I’m never using wonderful triple-filtered water. I hate to admit this, but I make coffee at home with tap water.
I’d like to suggest that my readers go back take a look at the Coffee Master article which talks about some basic coffee knowledge that a coffee master should have.
The Bright Sky Blend comes pre-ground, so it made sense to compare via a pour over:
Once the two cups of coffee were brewed, they looked the same to me:
You can see that the coffee grounds themselves are pretty light:
As to the tasting: We all noticed that the Bright Sky Blend really did have a lot of nuttiness to the aroma. It was a high acidity coffee, as most any Blonde Roast will be, but didn’t have quite the same tangy/citrus finish that Veranda Blend has. All three of us preferred the Bright Sky Blend to Veranda. It was like a very lightly roasted peanut! Steph made the comment that as the Bright Sky Blend cools, it seemed to develop some brown sugar flavors! One friend of mine (via Facebook) mentioned that she thought the Bright Sky Blend tasted as if it was just a hair darker roast than the Veranda Blend. I don’t think I was able to pick up that kind of subtlety of differences between the two coffee. Of course what coffee you like is very subjective!
If you are wondering, there are now four Blonde Roast coffees in the Starbucks coffee lineup:
- Veranda Blend – Available in Starbucks stores, grocery stores, and at StarbucksStore.com. This comes as a whole bean coffee (or pre-ground at StarbuckStore.com and a variety of other sources), Verismo pod format, Via Ready Brew, and K-Cup format.
- Willow Blend – Available in Starbucks stores, grocery stores, and at StarbucksStore.com. Available as a whole bean coffee (or pre-ground in grocery stores).
- Aria Blend – This has limited availability and is only available in the K-Cup format in grocery stores.
- Bright Sky Blend – Available as pre-ground coffee in Target stores (and possibly other grocery stores, though so far I’ve only seen it show up at Target), and available in the K-cup format.
Starbucks has said that they want to increase the number of SKUs available in the grocery story, including K-Cups, so it makes sense they’ve added these new coffees.
As a complete aside, people always ask me questions like ‘what’s so fun about Starbucks?’ or ‘why do you like Starbucks?’ and I was reminded this morning of part of my delight with Starbucks. Connecting over coffee is where it’s at. And this morning’s quick coffee tasting with two wonderful partners (I noticed we all had our coffee passports handy! I brought mine intentionally) and just sitting there talking about various Blonde Roast coffees really was a great way to start my Saturday morning. It was a great experience! Thank you Jen and Steph!
I love reading your comments, so tell me what you think of the new grocery store Starbucks coffees, or anything else Starbucks-related.
Edit: Willow Blend and Aria Blend are the same thing. Willow Blend is being renamed as Aria Blend.
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Interesting! They don’t tell us about grocery store releases at the corporate stores, so I’ll definitely have to swing by Target to see what I’m missing! Thanks, Melody!
Melody, Thanks for the write up on this with the comparisons. I think I want a coffee passport dag nab it!!!!! LOL!!! I didn’t know about the Aria blend until your mentioned it in this post. I have been drinking more Evolution Fresh Juices and I’ve been earning some stars at Teavana too. I really enjoy the company’s expansion with different drinks. Were you aware that Teavana is currently offering for a limited time a special “yellow tea”? You may want to check this out also. I can tell you the yellow tea was not for me, but it’s worth you checking it out for sure!
@Ness – I want to hear how you like it!
@MonicaDillow – I had thought about writing about the yellow tea at Teavana here on the blog, though sometimes I feel like my non-starbucks articles don’t get a very good reception. People come here really expecting Starbucks news. I tried it, and it was a pretty savory tea!
I think there should be an easier way for a customer to get one of those passports! At some point during the holiday season, I know that one of the tasting kits (maybe it was online?) had a current new passport in it! I remember thinking that would almost seem worth it to spend the $30 just to get the passport, or whatever the amount was. My own passport is starting to be very used, so I’m hoping I won’t have too much of a trouble getting a new one when mine is full.
So glad the partners seemed excited and ready to try it with you! You really have to work on creating that fun coffee culture in a store. As any partner will tell you, sometimes it can be a very busy/fast-paced and stressful environment that we often forget about the simplicity of taking time for a 5 minute coffee tasting. I’ve been really trying to lead the charge of that in my store. I’m always bringing in Starbucks Reserve coffees, or other coffees you can’t get everywhere (I.e. Holiday Blend and 100% Starbucks Kona from Hawaii). My partners come to expect almost daily coffee and food pairings and we have seen it pay off in the way of partner coffee knowledge and our stores At Home Coffee sales.
@Tom D – That is awesome and well said! I think it helps to catch a store when they’re slow, but yeah taking 5 minutes to try a new coffee reaps its own rewards!
Melody am curious as to why this blend would only be available at Target or at nonstarbucks stores?
Melody, now might be a good time to try and get your hands on a coffee passport – we’re eventually switching over to the new style, but have to use up the old ones first 🙂 some of us who have lots of the old ones might be persuaded to give them better homes 🙂 Ask one of your SM connections 🙂
@Rebecca – My passport looks like the one in this article:
http://www.starbucksmelody.com/2014/02/04/the-starbucks-black-apron-what-is-a-coffee-master/
Is there a newer passport coming soon?
Thanks for the tip!
@Purple1 – I just think that for years it’s been the case that Starbucks grocery store coffees don’t always match what is in the store. Starbucks tries to tailor the coffee offerings to the audience buying it. For example, A LOT of people with K-cup brewers only buy their K-Cups in the grocery stores, and the grocery store Starbucks coffee tends to have a lot more pre-ground coffee. So it just seems to be focused on what that audience wants.
Yeah Purple1 It is always weird when the grocery chunk has different / new things the stores do not have and vice-versa. I am betting there are two different employees in charge of the lines and they perhaps don’t always agree or arent in synch with launches? I wonder if blond has been more popular in retail than in stores? (they probably are very different audiences)
@AmazonV – Well said. Actually, sometimes I wish the grocery store items would make it to the stores. There is a new Blueberry canned Refresher which is pretty good, but grocery store only.
Oops – Melody, somehow my reply to you ended up in the coffee master post. *sigh* I need more coffee 🙂
Willow is actually just being renamed to Aria Blend. I’m glad my beloved Willow isn’t going away .
@Trent – I hadn’t heard that! I will have to check with Starbucks. It’s pretty confusing when Starbucks renames the same coffee. Veranda Blend is True North Blend in Canada. I hope that Bright Sky Blend isn’t just Veranda renamed again! Thank you for the correction info.
I’m pretty excited to hunt down this new blonde roast! & I’m sad that the Willow blend is being renamed.. it came out while I was pregnant with my daughter Willow, & I stayed stocked up on decaf Willow blend the rest of my pregnancy.
Wow, Aria sounds very elegant and fun! Bright Sky, as far as the name goes, I’m not a huge fan; sounds very contrived. That being said, I’m glad the coffee was tasty; I would keep my eyes out when I go to a Target store next time. Wish the corporate stores will carry Aria and Bright Sky as whole beans in stores though! Bummer!
Ok girls, lol, i love your article, but one thing is missing, I am a former Starbucks employee, and we were always taught that the lighter the roast, the more caffeine, I specifically purchased this coffee for the light roast aspect, the flavor is great, but I got absolutely no caffeine benefit, because I purchased it, i have made several cups, but no matter how strong i make it, there is no energy boost, I feel like I got defective coffee 😀 tell me what you think~
How does Ture North fit into this Blonde line up? I tasted that up in B.C Canada. Can’t dind it in Seattle…
I know this post is from last year, but I had to comment. I too love the Bright Sky blend far more than I like the Veranda blend. I like to add just a little sugar free vanilla syrup to mine for a sweet treat. It’s amazing!
I can’t find any info on how many mg caffeine per serving anywhere though… I’ve been searching. It’s got to pack a pretty good punch, always zaps me awake first thing in the morning.
Highly recommend this blend!
And i agree that conversation over coffee couldn’t possibly be a better start to a morning 🙂