I was sucked into one of in-store customer taste comparisons, when Via was launching. The Via was better than the brewed coffee -- no surprise to me; I've cons

I was sucked into one of in-store customer taste comparisons, when Via was launching. The Via was better than the brewed coffee -- no surprise to me; I've consistently found Starbucks in-store brewed coffee to be lousy. (I can do a lot better at home, with the same beans.) I never purchase Via, and neither do many others, I suspect, because at $1 or more per 8 oz cup, it just seems ridiculously expensive for instant coffee. (Even if it's comparable to the in-store price for a brewed cup -- and, as I mentioned, tastes better. If customers ever learn the latter.) I've read that they use a centrifuge to "dry" it, and so I don't know what the production costs are. But when I read that they are grinding beans very finely, rather than concocting an extract, and when I look at the physical quantity they are selling you, I can't help imagining that the margin on Via (minus marketing and all that crap) is exhorbitant. Perhaps one problem is that if they dropped the Via prices, they'd undercut their in-store sales. Anyway, Via's a decent product, but it seems to have limited opportunity under its current marketing.