This weekend is the Via Taste Challenge weekend, and so I can’t pass up this opportunity to visit a new store and do the challenge. For those who don’t know, VIA™ Ready Brew is an instant coffee in individualized serving packages. Each packet makes 8 to 10 ounces of coffee. (10 may be a little weak). Via comes in two coffee varieties: Italian Roast and Columbia. Via first was launched in Seattle and Chicago in March 3rd of this year, and then September 29 this year was the big national and Canadian launch. All Starbucks stores are now selling Via. My understanding is that it is also available online at the Starbucks store, in some Target stores, and at Coscto.
The taste challenge is framed as “Can you taste the difference?” So, can the customer tell which is freshly brewed Starbucks Pike Place Roast (the coffee selected for the challenge) and which is an instant coffee? I think the gist is that many people won’t know an instant from a brew. I don’t think the challenge is about comparing flavor profiles so much as it is about being tripped up about the brew methods. Is this really instant coffee? … Let’s see how the store visit and challenge went …
On Sunday October 3rd I decided to head outside of Seattle (actually to avoid the possibility of running into baristas who know me) and so I found myself in the small town of North Bend, Washington. Store #13730 is the subject of my Via Challenge and store review, much like famed Starbucks store reviewer Juan Valdez.
The store is situated in the mountainous Mt. Si area of Washington State, and probably gets lots of freeway passersby because of its close proximity to I-90. There is a drive-through which seemed to stay steadily busy.
I arrived at 8:45 am, and saw 4 baristas working. I decided to get my food before the taste challenge, and so I ordered a usual Starbucks breakfast for me: Oatmeal with 2 brown sugars and 1 nuts. I grabbed an orange juice and asked for the bold pick in a for-here cup. The barista asked me if I was going to do the Via Challenge and I said “yes” and so she offered to not charge me for the coffee. I thought that was nice, and said thank you.
Interestingly, the two customers after me also asked for the bold pick, and I thought somehow this area has a lot of bold coffee drinkers, possibly.
There were four baristas on the floor. One was tied up at the drive-through, another on bar, another on register, and a fourth floating back and forth between behind the bar and the Via Taste Challenge table. Though, four baristas on the floor sounds like a lot, to really have enough attention for the taste challenge, it would be nice to see one person dedicated to the Via Challenge table. However, these days, that simply is not the Starbucks way of allocating labor. At some point, the floor staff seemed to dwindle down to 3, and so the Via Taste Challenge table was up for grabs for customers to sort of just pour and do the challenge on their own.
Despite all this, what an enthusiastic crew! Every person was full of smiles and the young barista who was running back and forth between the bar area and the Via Challenge table was really trying 110% to get customers engaged. She was asking them which they liked better, which they thought was instant, and promoting the fact that there was a coupon.
I took the challenge, and sure enough, guessed right. But right after me, a tall wiry man in a Mariner’s t-shirt guessed wrong and he seemed visibly bummed!
I sat down with my oatmeal and realized I needed a little more water, so I headed back to the register, and the register girl offered to put a little steamed milk in it. That was a very nice gesture, but I declined. I am just not into warm milk which is why I am not a latte drinker usually.
By the way, huge kudos to the store for getting my oatmeal right. Despite that I always order oatmeal with 2 brown sugar and one nuts, I often get handed an oatmeal with one each (brown sugar, fruit, nuts) in the little brown bag.
A little later, a man in a leather coat also guessed incorrectly which was brewed and instant, and he too seemed a little bummed. Ah men, and their fragile egos. 😉 Much later a woman in sweats and hair in a pony tail tried the two, but she ended up just tossing out the little sample cups and not saying what she picked because by the time she drank the little samples, the store was too busy to come back and talk to her about it.
There were several occasions customers helped themselves to the two samples absent a barista around to assist their Via Taste Challenge. I could tell the baristas were really trying very hard to be attentive, but they were spread too thin. The store looked clean. Though, in order to be as thorough as Juan Valdez, I popped my head in to the ladies restroom: The restroom looked like a totally normal restroom. Clean enough, stocked, and a plunger next to the toilet. I realize that from prior Starbucks Gossip conversation, there are those who believe that a plunger should not get stored in the bathroom, but I can’t think of a better place for it.
I stayed in the store one hour, and never saw the barista enthusiasm wane. One barista, who I assume had a name beginning with “k” since she wore small necklace with a “k” pendant, was constantly on the go, back and forth, to and from the table. At the end of my visit, I finally bought a 12 pack of Via (it seemed like the fair thing to do), and let the register barista know that there would be a blog entry on her store.
All I can say are good things about this store. Keep up the good work! I’d recommend this store to a friend!
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I took the VIA challenge as well and I could tell which was PPR and which was VIA just by smelling them. I didn’t even have to taste them. PPR has a very distinct aroma, almost like copper or metal or something like that.
Haha, NBDT is my old manager’s store! Sarah runs a great (usually really clean) store and was likely there as she doesn’t rest! I go in there time to time, usually in the ski season, to say hi. That’s funny that you stopped in there. That store was number #1 in VIA sales during the test launch… one could see why, lot’s of commuting customers that would take a pack camping or skiing on the east side of the mountains.
I hear ya Melody. As a partner for the bux working this weekend it really felt spread thin. There is a lot of pressure and excitement at my store to double our goals so our manager was taking every chance to do the challenge. What that meant for me is at points there would be a line and I would be juggling bar and register. I don’t mind, I want to hit our goals too, but i’ll be glad when the taste challenge is over!
I have to admit that I like your reviews a little more than Juan’s.
Good review. Sounds like the partners were really getting into it!
(But how was the pastry case??)
Great writing Melody!! re: the VIA challenge, altho we’ve had it here (Chicago) all along, those little cups were everywhere for those few days. Sadly, in most of the stores where I went, as you alluded to, they absolutely did not have enough manpower to even begin to do it properly. At 50% of the stores, they had it set up right at the register! so the barista who was taking your order and ringing you up, was also doing the whole ‘challenge’. You get the picture, especially when periodically the lines would be to the door (long). At ‘my’ store, I really wanted to just take over, set the thing up on a little table, and do it right…they really needed help. (too bad I couldn’t) In any case, since they were comparing VIA Columbian (I like the Italian Rst) vs PPR, I thought it not a true ‘challenge’. I was right (& wrong) about 50% of the time. The stores were too short & rushed to even make the VIA correctly, I saw this..so, it was pretty much hit or miss. Besides all that, they should’ve done this here in Chicago back when it came out! crazy. I remember one morning ??? when it was maybe about pastries? and the theme was ‘come in your pajamas’, (which quite a few people actaully did)…the store I go to actually was very well staffed for that event. and it was just a normal morning that required really not so much more work…they had pasty samples. Anyway, great blog and great info!
I think the taste test was a bit unfair and designed so that Via would win every time since it was compared to Starbucks’ worst coffee Pike Place Roast or what is affectionally referred to as Pike’s Puke. A much fairer comparison would have been to compare Via to one of Starbucks’ better coffees. That’s just my opinion.
Also how do I get my picture on like Amanda?
I admit that I saw a number of stores over the weekend doing their Via challenges right at the register, which is not really the best way to do it, in my humble opinion. Also, I think that the marketing about what a customer was supposed to take away from the challenge was unclear.
It may make a nice sound-bite to say “Can you taste the difference” but the difference in taste was OBVIOUS. The real question was “Can you figure out which one was drip-brewed?”
And I never once saw a barista talk about the 4 stages of a coffee tasting!
That last comment was in reply to Denise R.
When ideas get to big for their own good they destroy what once was the very essence of the idea in the first place: interesting, unique, elusive and local. If Charbucks…and I use the adjective “char” to describe nearly every cup of plain regular coffee this over boated chain has become…had opened a reasonable number of locations it would have been so much better off. Instead, the stupidity of greed has changed the product and experience…forever. No matter what anyone says…when 800 locations and counting are closed and continue to close it’s tells us one thing…the massive expansion idea has become a failure. Their own hype has driven this company into a very poor place especially with the attitudes of many many coffee drinkers. Reminds me a lot of Microsoft…operating systems have not improved like their chief competitors and their stocks prove that. Instead of staying focused and refining what they do, they continue to push MORE ITEMS, MORE CHOICES which are average at best and it’s all an attempt to capture an audience with a new gimmick. As a result Charbucks has become the “fast food” of coffee. Bottom line? Gluttony and greed has killed this chain.
@NotImpressed – You make some valid points. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I’ve been saying all along that Starbucks over-expanded because nobody wants a lovely coffee experience at a place that feels like it is a ‘dime a dozen’ chain. However, the greed came not with opening up too many corporate locations, but rather the over licensing of the brand. If tomorrow all the licensed Starbucks locations were wiped out, it would feel like nearly half of them were gone. That would be an incredible change.
And of course what does a company do when it gets too big? It fractures. It definitely fractures. You can see that now at Starbucks whether or not they admit it. There is the typical Starbucks operating like a fast-food business, and the more coffee-oriented experience at their limited number of Clover locations and the recent introduction of the mercantile stores. What Starbucks really needs to do is hound the baristas at these exclusive locations that they have something special to offer. They have unique coffees. They can easily do coffee sampling. It’s unfortunate that sometimes one encounters baristas at these locations still operating under the fast-food mindset, but you’re more likely have a coffeehouse experience at one of the unique Clover stores.
And frankly coffee is a food product. It is perishable and can be prepared a million different ways with a million different brew methods. I want my cup of coffee to be rich and roasty, and I don’t want it to be tea-like.