Starbucks Supersizes the Venti, Unveils the Trenta

Starbucks is introducing a line of bigger-than-ever iced drinks, but don't you dare call it a Big Gulp. Starbucks wishes you to refer to its just-shy-of-a-quart size as "Trenta."

Yes, that's right – Trenta. It means 30 in Italian but never mind that. Starbucks says the new size will actually contain 31 ounces of iced coffee, tea, lemonade and so forth. The Trenta tops Starbucks' previous biggest gulp, the 20-ounce Venti (20 in Italian, of course) and will cost about 50 cents more.

Coming on top of all the latest iPhone buzz, the arrival of the Trenta is likely to set hearts aflutter throughout the nation's hipper regions.

But the nation's official trend-setter, California, will have to wait. The bigger cups won't arrive them until February. They'll be introduced beginning today in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, Nevada and Arizona.

Starbucks says it market-tested the new size in such thirsty climes as Phoenix, Tampta and Atlanta.

Baristas United

Meanwhile, workers at the Astor Place Starbucks in New York says they've joined the IWW Starbucks Worker's Union. They say they're "prepared for a long struggle to win the right to be treated with dignity and fairness."

The workers spent Martin Luther King Jr. Day handing out a letter to customers and charging that local Starbucks management had refused to meet with them.

"Today we are declaring our membership in the Industrial Workers of The World, Starbucks Workers Union," the letter said. "We have joined the Union because we feel that as human beings we have the right to have a say in the decisions regarding our living and working conditions and because it is clear that if we do not stand up for ourselves, Starbucks will not act in our best interests. We also care about the work that we do and we feel that until we begin to be treated fairly we will be unable to provide the customers who patronize our store with adequate services."

Among the workers' demands is one calling for "workplace democracy.," including "worker particpation regarding all decisions made at a store level."

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