It's too early to say whether Via is a success. But judging from the coffee blogs, including the company's mystarbucksidea.com, for some baristas the pressure to sell the product is intense and unwelcome. "This is the most stressful promotion I have ever experienced, and I've been with the company for seven years," a barista wrote on starbucksgossip.com. Some customers are finding the hard sell a bit exasperating, too. As one wrote: "Please no more high-pressure Via sales pitches. It's annoying … it's completely out of line with Starbucks' vibe."

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Starbucks sees great potential in Via: Instant coffee is a $21 billion global market. And Starbucks made a significant investment in Via, the biggest product rollout in its history. Naturally, executives set ambitious sales goals. There, perhaps, lie the roots of the problem. Starbucks baristas typically think of themselves as akin to bartenders, not salespeople. "We were just told to place a Via 12-pack in the customer's hand while asking if they would 'like to add some Via to their order,' " blogged one barista. "I have seen more annoyed customers than enthusiastic ones from all these strong-arm sales tactics. ... Not to say it's not a good product. I think it just needs to be kept in the supermarkets next to the other Starbucks mass-market frill."

Starbucks said Subway will add the brew to more locations next year. Seattle's Best will also be served at 800 Canadian locations by late December.

"We want to be able to take Seattle's Best Coffee out of the shadow of Starbucks and really, for the first time in its history, have a life of its own," Starbucks CFO Troy Alstead said during a conference call Thursday evening

Chief Executive Howard Schultz said in a conference call that a "more disciplined focus on operations" helped the company increase earnings and that it is seeing improvements in its surveys of customer satisfaction. During the quarter, Starbucks cut prices on so-called easy-to-make coffees, while lifting prices by as much as 30 cents for larger and more complex drinks, such as a venti caramel macchiato.

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Mr. Schultz said the company is encouraged by the national rollout of its Via instant-coffee product. Via is "resonating with customers" and is having little negative impact on traditional coffee sales at Starbucks, he said. Starbucks began making Via available in September in all its cafes in the U.S. and Canada, as well as in other locations such as hotels and bookstores. The company created Via, which costs $2.95 for a three pack, to try to reach consumers who aren't inclined to splurge on a regular coffee purchase.

Starbucks, which has about 11,000 U.S. outlets, reported $53.2 million in restructuring charges for its fourth quarter, almost all of which stemmed from store closings. The company said it had shuttered nearly all of the roughly 800 U.S. stores and 100 international stores in its previously announced store-closing plans.

For the shops, aligning with a premium brand is a way to differentiate themselves from chains and other independent shops--and to charge higher prices. At Caffe Greco in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, owner Hanna Suleiman says sales have increased by 10% and profits by 3% since the shop signed up with Illy a year ago.

Illy began signing up independent shops, mostly in Italy, three years ago in a program called "Artisti del Gusto," or Artists of Taste. It brought the program to the U.S. last year. Illy supplies shops with Italian espresso machines, coffee cups, artwork, drink recipes and intensive training, after which the cafe becomes a certified Illy purveyor. In return, the shop must agree to serve only Illy coffee for at least three years.

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There are currently 28 U.S. shops operating under Artisti del Gusto certification and Illy plans to add 100 more in the next three years. The company also is moving the program into Canada and Mexico.

Illy staffers in North America visit certified shops to check quality standards. The stores are routinely scored on how well they steam milk and clean the espresso machines. If cafes aren't performing up to par, Illy provides additional training while reserving the right to yank their certification, says Gregory Fea, chief executive of Illy's North American business.

With Via, the coffee chain that introduced espresso drinks to the masses, hopes to steal a big slice of the $21 billion global instant coffee market from established players like Nestle SA's Nescafe and Kraft Foods Inc's Sanka.

"This is the biggest investment we've made in a national launch," said Schultz, who is navigating a turnaround at Starbucks while looking for new products to drive profits.

Starbucks will trumpet Via's debut in the United States and Canada with a week-long advertising campaign that will highlight in-store taste tests pitting Via against Starbucks brewed coffee.

A trio of single-serve Via packets will sell for $2.95 in the United States and 12 packets will sell for $9.95. Those prices are significantly higher than Nescafe's Taster's Choice single-serve packets that sell in Los Angeles for roughly $1.50 for six and around $4 for 20.

< Starbucks aficionados "won't balk at the price" of Via if they believe it delivers on taste, said Bill Smead, portfolio manager of the Smead Value Fund in Seattle.

The process of making fabric out of coffee grounds is very similar to that used to turn bamboo into a viscose-like material. The resultant fabric is soft, light, flexible and breathable and can also be used to produce an outer shell that is water resistant. It's impregnated with 'activated' carbon, derived from coconut, which makes it UV-resistant, wicks water away, keeps the wearer cool and binds to sweat to eliminate unpleasant odours.

Singtex says the fabric is perfect for mid and base layers for adrenalin-powered sports like rock climbing, as well as walking, running and yoga. Apparently, it only takes the grounds from one cup of coffee to make enough material for a couple of T-shirts.

The increases average about 10 cents to 15 cents per beverage, and will also apply to extra shots of espresso or flavors, Valerie O'Neil, a spokeswoman for the Seattle-based company, said by telephone today. Prices on lattes, cappuccinos and brewed coffee will decrease 5 cents to 15 cents, the first price cut the company has made, she said.

"We're always looking for ways to provide more value to our customers while balancing our business responsibilities," O'Neil said by telephone today. "We're fine-tuning our pricing in select markets to better reflect geographic and cost considerations."

The coffee chain has seen sales fall in the recession as cash-strapped consumers visit the cafes less often. The price changes were reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier today.

A sign at Naidre's, a small neighborhood coffee shop in Brooklyn, N.Y., begins warmly: "Dear customers, we are absolutely thrilled that you like us so much that you want to spend the day..." But, it continues, "...people gotta eat, and to eat they gotta sit." At Naidre's in Park Slope and its second location in nearby Carroll Gardens, Wi-Fi is free. But since the spring of 2008, no laptops have been allowed between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekends, unless the customer is eating and typing at the same time.

Amid the economic downturn, there are fewer places in New York to plug in computers. As idle workers fill coffee-shop tables -- nursing a single cup, if that, and surfing the Web for hours -- and as shop owners struggle to stay in business, a decade-old love affair between coffee shops and laptop-wielding customers is fading. In some places, customers just get cold looks, but in a growing number of small coffee shops, firm restrictions on laptop use have been imposed and electric outlets have been locked. The laptop backlash may predate the recession, but the recession clearly has accelerated it.

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Some coffee shops say they still welcome laptop users, if only because they make the stores look busy. For some, the growing number of laptop-carrying customers with time on their hands is reason to expand. "I had to add more outlets and higher speed" in early June, says Sebastian Simsch, 40, the co-owner of Seattle Coffee Works. Starbucks Corp. coffee houses, which in some cases charge for Wi-Fi, and bookstore chain Borders Group Inc., which always charges for Wi-Fi, don't have any plans to change their treatment of laptop customers. Neither does bookstore giant Barnes & Noble Inc., where the Wi-Fi is complimentary.

But in New York, the trend is accelerating among independents. At Cocoa Bar locations in Brooklyn and on the Manhattan's Lower East Side, a five-month-old rule forbids laptops after 8 on Friday and Saturday nights. At Espresso 77 in Jackson Heights, Queens, owners covered three of five electric outlets six months ago after its loosely enforced laptop-use restrictions failed to encourage turnover. At two of three Cafe Grumpy locations -- one in Brooklyn and the other in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood -- laptops are never welcome.

The company began testing lean methods in Oregon last year. One of the first stores was managed by Tara Jordan, in Oregon City. "In my eyes, we couldn't get better," says Ms. Jordan. Her store boasts one of the fastest Starbucks drive-through windows in the country, according to the company, with an average time per order of 25 seconds. To help her understand how work can be done more efficiently, Kim Landreth, a member of the lean team, brought a Mr. Potato Head to Ms. Jordan's store and sprinkled the ears, nose, lips and other accessories across several tables.

Using a stop watch, Ms. Landreth timed how long it took Ms. Jordan to assemble the toy and place it in its box. It took more than a minute. Ms. Landreth asked her to think about how she could complete the task faster. Moving items closer together shaved time, as did altering the order of assembly. Over two hours, Ms. Jordan amended the task. Her final time: about 16 seconds. "That really opened my eyes," she says.

The next project: observing the area where blended drinks, such as frappuccinos, are made. "I thought it was going to be the best station in my store," Ms. Jordan says. "What I saw was how much my partners were moving and reaching for things that were never in the same place. It took way too long to make one beverage," she says. They moved all but the most commonly ordered syrup flavors and now store pitchers closer to where the drinks are made. After learning that topping the drinks with whipped cream and chocolate or caramel drizzle at the drink station was slowing down production, they moved those items closer to where drinks are handed to customers. The changes shaved eight seconds off the 45-second process. "Just to top the beverage with whipped cream and drizzle took six seconds," Ms. Jordan says.

In all, new methods have cut two seconds off the store's drive-through time -- to an average of 23 seconds. Between September 2008 and June 2009, her store experienced a 10% increase in transactions. The company says that having food and drinks ready to go quickly can boost traffic because that keeps people from leaving stores.

Tim Hortons, a Canadian purveyor of doughnuts and coffee that has won a wide following, is making a sudden entry into the city.

Between Friday night and dawn on Monday, the Riese Organization intends to convert 13 Dunkin' Donuts stores into the city's first Tim Hortons restaurants, including early-morning, high-traffic shops like the one in Pennsylvania Station and another next to the New York Stock Exchange. The switch may surprise regular customers of the shops, said Dennis Riese, chief executive of the Riese Organization.

"You take down one sign and put up another," Mr. Riese said. "The biggest challenge will be to get New Yorkers to know what Tim Hortons is."