Starbucks Now Has Spring Cups, and They Look Kind of Familiar Although the coffee chain's seasonal cups have courted controversy in the past, we think it will be pretty safe with these new designs.
By Nina Zipkin
While much of the East Coast is experiencing what we hope is the last snowy gasp of winter, spring has sprung for Starbucks. For a limited time, the coffee giant will offer cups with vibrant blue, yellow and green backdrops with designs such as a happy sun and an umbrella -- and they all look a bit like the Twitter egg.
Apparently spring was the only season that the company had not yet covered. There have been summer and fall cups, but you could be forgiven for not knowing that, since the autumn design is usually eclipsed by the arrival of what's in it: the Pumpkin Spice Latte.
Related: Starbucks Courts Millennials With $10 Coffee at New Reserve Bars
However, it's always pretty easy to tell when the holiday season officially begins -- Mariah Carey's voice is suddenly inescapable and people have a lot of opinions about the cups at Starbucks.
In 2015, the coffee giant's holiday cup design, a simple red backdrop that eschewed the more classic snowman and reindeer motifs, led many to think that Starbucks was making some sort of statement about Christmas.
Related: Tour The $40 Million Manhattan Penthouse Bought By Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz
Last November, the company released a cup with a green and white design populated with cartoon people, which Chairman and CEO Howard Schultz said was meant to "represent the connections Starbucks has as a community with its partners (employees) and customers. During a divisive time in our country, Starbucks wanted to create a symbol of unity as a reminder of our shared values, and the need to be good to each other."
However well meaning, the proximity of the rollout to the holidays led many to mistake the design for yet another slight against Christmas. But whether bright spring colors and sunshine will inspire controversy is really anyone's guess. At the very least, it may just be a good excuse to get a cup of coffee.
