Starbucks kicked off the holiday season Monday and debuted its new green cup, which is noticeably lacking traditional festive vestiges.
The new green cup does, however, feature a “mosaic of more than a hundred people drawn in one continuous stroke,” according to a company statement.
“The green cup and the design represent the connections Starbucks has as a community with its partners (employees) and customers. During a divisive time in our county, Starbucks wanted to create a symbol of unity as a reminder of our shared values, and the need to be good to each other,” said Howard Schultz, Starbucks chairman and CEO.
The coffee giant revealed the never-before-seen green cups Monday and made them available to U.S. costumers Tuesday.
The design of the Starbucks holiday season cup caused controversy last year when the Seattle-based company unveiled its bare, red cup.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump weighed in then and slammed Starbucks. “Maybe we should boycott Starbucks. I don’t know. Seriously, I don’t care,” Trump told a crowd in Springfield, Illinois, last November.
Indeed, Starbucks, as Breitbart London editor-in-chief Raheem Kassam notes, has “slowly, but definitely, moved away from Christmas, and Christian iconography.”
“Starbucks commissioned artist Shogo Ota to create the artwork,” the company press release said. “His threaded design represents shared humanity and connection, serving as a symbol for stitching people together as a united community.”
Schultz, who endorsed Hillary Clinton in September, wrote to Clinton top aide Cheryl Mills in July 2015, according to an email released by WikiLeaks, warning that the Democratic nominee’s campaign message “feels stale” and lacks, among other things, “transparency” and “truth.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson.
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