Starbucks: No Words to Describe the New Bigger Offering

You had to know it was coming, what with McDonald's getting all "We can outdo you folks from Seattle any day with our low-price designer coffee menu items." Still, that's a lot of coffee.

Starbucks will be offering a massive 31-ounce coffee drink size known as Trenta. Yep, say it fives times fast.

Trenta indeed. This is no ordinary 24-ounce Venti we're talking about. No, this is a guaranteed-to-send-you-to-the-bathroom-more-quickly effort by the venerable Seattle coffee company to reassert itself on top of the bean mountain, as it were. That's a cold drink, though, as in iced coffee or iced tea (all the more quickly to need the bathroom will thee be). Hot drink? Why would they do that? Would anyone really order a 32-ounce hot drink?

Well, why not? That's probably the mantra behind this latest size explosion anyway. Americans in 14 states will be able to procure one of these liquid behemoths. In fact, if you live in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, or Texas, you can get yours right away. Californians have to wait until February 1. The rest of the country will have to wait even more. Some things are worth waiting for, eh? We'll see. It's not exactly a Big Gulp, but it's getting there.

There's also the matter of the logo, which is conspicuously lacking things like words. Starbucks says it wants to diversify; fair enough, but why remove the company name as well?