Coffee and Christ: A match made in heaven

Starbucks’s holiday season cup displays an image of Jesus Christ and nothing else

Hailey Boger, Staff Artist

Those stopping by Starbucks this holiday season for a nice peppermint latte are sure to behold the franchise’s newest holiday design: the Jesus cup. In response to backlash in past years for cups not upholding the standards of certain groups of people, Starbucks has released a cup that has a picture of Jesus Christ on it.

Kelley Greene, design manager for Starbucks, hopes that the Jesus cup will finally get people to stop complaining about the holiday cups every year.

“Our team worked very hard to create a design that would appeal to everyone,” Greene said. “They complained about ‘happy holidays,’ so we removed that. They complained about the color red, so we removed that as well.”

A closer look at the cup shows a monotone, over-saturated image of Jesus Christ staring intensely at the buyer. That’s it, really.

“If people aren’t satisfied with that, we won’t know what else to do,” Greene said.

Fortunately, the feedback on the Jesus cup has been primarily positive. In a poll conducted on mostly those of Christian faith, about 99 percent of voters said they approved of the Jesus Cup and thought it really captured the true Christmas spirit. One Starbucks frequenter, Anne Parsons, was overcome with joy when she saw advertisements for the new cup.

“I just can’t believe it took them this long to put Jesus on a cup,” Parsons said.

One percent, however, did not like the cup. A few commenters reported that the cups still weren’t good enough for their taste.

“If my cup doesn’t depict Jesus Christ dying for our sins with Bible verses covering it, then what’s the point,” Online user I♥JESUS89 commented.