Star­bucks has a new instant cof­fee called “Via”. (I men­tioned that back on Feb­ru­ary 19.) So it took a while for the free sam­ples to come. It took a while longer for me to try them. The per­fect oppor­tu­nity came when I spent a week­end with two bud­dies who aren’t cof­fee addicts like me.

Ver­dict? Amaz­ing. It cer­tainly has to be the best instant in the world. It comes in two fla­vors: Colom­bia and Ital­ian Roast. I like Colom­bia best. (I pre­fer strong fla­vors, so I was sur­prised at my ver­dict.) It has none of that gritty instant-coffee-taste. There’s not quite the depth of fla­vor a fresh-brewed cup has, but con­sid­er­ing that Star­bucks squeezed that much taste in a tiny packet, I am fully impressed.

Each lit­tle single-serving packet costs about 83c. That’s a lit­tle bit much for my bud­get, so this will not be a reg­u­lar part of my coffee-drinking experience.

In the pack­age, there was a coupon for free ship­ping with any order from starbucks.com. I thought that was pretty minor bonus, but then I stopped to con­sider that the sam­ples were free... I was just being ungrateful.

If you can afford it and need that con­ve­nience dur­ing travel, get some! My only tip is to pour boil­ing water after you have put the pow­der in the cup. That will allow your cof­fee to all be used and will not allow steam to cake it at the lip of the package.

Dis­claimer: via the Star­bucks Twit­ter feed, “Star­bucks VIA is avail­able in Seat­tle, Chicago, Lon­don, and online (US only).” So your super­mar­ket may not carry it yet!