Known for pouring exotic brews from Sumatra or Rwanda, Starbucks, the gourmet coffee-shop chain, is introducing a product that instead might evoke a dusty shelf in a local supermarket: instant coffee.

Both Costco and Target, the mass-market retailers, will carry Via in the spring, he said. All of Starbucks’s 26,000 stores worldwide will sell it by the fall, he said.

Two varieties, Colombia and Italian Roast, can also be ordered online at the Seattle-based company’s Web site, www.starbucksstore.com

“Everything about this coffee stands up to the test of time,” he said. “This is not your mother’s instant coffee.”