Last year's bull run in commodities was led mainly by oil, grains and gold. This year we've had spectacular bull runs in the "soft" commodities, which include mainly, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar and orange juice.

Tea is at an all-time high; cocoa is at a 30-year high; and sugar is at a 28.5-year high. Orange juice reached its highest price in 15 months. Tea prices for the best quality broken pekoe, or BP1, surged to a record $5.02 a kilogram, up 70% since January.

Could tea by the unlikely savior of Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX)? The company unveiled three new full-leaf tea lattes on January 3. Each of them uses the new fat full-leaf Tazo tea bags; a tea-drinking experience rarely found in coffee shops. And they're good.

While some may have thought the green tea latte idea was odd at best, disgusting at worst (I'll raise my hand here), these new tea lattes are a pleasant balance of flavors and a totally different experience than Starbucks' overpowering coffee drinks and super-sweet blended drinks. I ordered the London Fog tea latte yesterday, a mix of Earl Grey-style tea, vanilla syrup (I ordered it with 1/3 the regular amount of vanilla syrup), and steamed milk, and it was frothy and lovely. The other two options, Black Tea and Vanilla Rooibos, are essentially the same concept with different tea blends (the Rooibos is caffeine-free), and both seem popular, too.

I'd resisted the concept at first, but soon my Twitter stream was flooded with Starbucks customers in love with the London Fog. (For the record, plenty of people think it tastes terrible too, but the lovers seem to be in the majority.) Both other new tea lattes, and the fruit-tea infusions, are getting good reviews all over.

Could this be Starbucks' savior? Perhap. The tea lattes, essentially branding the drink the British and Indian people have perfected over centuries, are a great way to open the chain up to a different sort of experience for all-day visitors and customers who want to meet friends at Starbucks but don't drink coffee. Now, instead of ordering the cheapest drink on the menu, coffee avoiders can find something special (and pricey) to call their own. Those of us who like coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon can cozy up to the London Fog. It's a smart move, and one that could develop into a game changer should Starbucks handle the training well. I'm cautiously optimistic that Starbucks' future is (partly) steeped in tea.