Starbucks Plans Single-Serve Home Espresso Machines

Starbucks is expanding its venture into your home. First it offered instant coffee, then it launched K-cups of brewed coffee that work with Green Mountain Coffee's single-serving Keurig machines. Now the coffee chain is taking it up a notch: It's readying a single-serve espresso machine, enabling the chain's classiest coffee drinkers to make their own lattes and other espresso drinks at home, the AP reports. The Verismo machine goes on sale this fall.

"This is not about any disappointment with Green Mountain; it's about controlling our own destiny," says CEO Howard Schultz, who adds that the different coffee-making methods will "coexist," letting customers choose between instant, brewed, and espresso options. Even so, Starbucks shares climbed $1.64 after hours while Green Mountain Coffee saw shares drop after the announcement. The price of the Verismo, made in conjunction with the German firm Krueger, hasn't yet been announced. (More Starbucks stories.)