Today another sample of Starbucks Via instant coffee came with the newspaper. I like the samples, and I think the coffee is good. But this is not an item that I will ever buy. It is just too expensive for what it is.

I’m lazy so I’m not going to do a full cost-benefit analysis of Starbucks Via instant coffee the way I did for my Liberal Arts degree or Master of Fine Arts but:

3 cups of Starbucks Via costs $3.
Or, if I buy Safeway brand instant crystals, 100 cups costs $3.

Or to change this up, 9 cups of Starbucks Via costs $9.
But if I buy a half pound of Starbucks coffee beans, that also costs $9 but I can make about 60 cups of coffee.

So that means I pay about 7 times as much money for Starbucks Via as I would for normal Starbucks beans. That makes no sense to me.