Starbucks supersized: Are you a believer?

How much iced caffeine can you sip in one serving? Starbucks' guess is: More. This week Yahoo! News reports that Starbucks announced a new larger cup size for iced coffee and iced tea, as part of a limited consumer test in two of the country's wet-hottest cities, Phoenix and Tampa.

Meet the Trenta. That's Italian for 30, and the cup holds even more than that -- 31 ounces. An iced coffee in this near-liter size will be $3.30, while iced tea will go for $2.60. Yahoo! News says, "[s]uch large drink sizes are particularly popular in warm climates in the southern United States, where convenience stores do brisk business selling drinks in even larger containers." In other words, Starbucks is competing with the country's Big Gulps and bigger Gulps.

Because trough-sized sodas have been saddled with responsibility for our obese nation, Starbucks' PR email is quick to point out that, "unsweetened the beverages are less than 5 calories, but even a sweetened iced coffee or tea in a Trenta cup would be less than 200 calories."

I admit iced coffee and tea do go down fast. Two-thirds of the cup is filled with ice. When I get an iced decaf coffee at any given cafe, I lament the tiny real estate for the actual drink-part of the order. I put back $4 in four seconds because there are only six good sips in there. Afterward, I count how much I spent for each of the ice cubes now rattling around like Lars Ulrich in that clear plastic cup. I mean, can you imagine what the profit margin on an ice cube is?

I guess I believe in the Trenta. I believe it should be Starbuck's free supersize-with-purchase to reimburse the country for the millions of igloos' worth of ice cubes it's sold us.