Tag: Starbucks

As readers of a junk food blog may agree, there is nothing quite like buying yourself a little treat, whether you’ve done anything to deserve it or not. When that treat is a beverage, I will choose a chai latte nine times out of ten. I love them so much that I have tested and ranked the chai lattes offered by (almost) every café in my city. When a craving hits, even the low-ranked ones hit the spot. However, my favorites are often an equal measure of tea, milk, sweetness, and spice. Chai spice blend preferences are about as personal as one’s coffee order, but I like a peppery bite as well as a hint of vanilla.

I both love and resent chai lattes for occupying so much of my mental space that could be dedicated to other things, like remembering the names of my colleagues’ kids or establishing a regular dusting schedule.

Again, my priorities were set when I tasted the Iced Gingerbread Oatmilk Chai Latte, a new item on Starbucks’ winter menu. The iced beverage base consists of Starbucks’ chai concentrate, chai syrup, and oatmilk. An oatmilk froth flavored with gingerbread syrup tops the drink, along with a sprinkle of pumpkin spice. (Sadly, my order was missing the pumpkin spice. I shouldn’t take it personally. And yet….)

To add gingerbread syrup only to the froth felt like an odd choice. The flavor was noticeable (and at times trickled down into the drink’s base), but I expected it to shine more brightly. Mostly cinnamon and molasses, the gingerbread flavor tasted good, but lacked any real punch of ginger. (Gingerbread fans may wish to try the hot version of the drink, which contains both chai and gingerbread syrups in the base. Share your findings, please!)

The oatmilk in the base was delicious, contributing a thick, creamy richness and subtle nutty flavor. It was very sweet, which I’m not opposed to. The creaminess seemed to dominate, throwing off the spice ratio. As with the froth, the spice in the base seemed very cinnamon-forward. Even though Starbucks’ chai concentrate contains black pepper and ginger, the drink somehow lacked the bite I expect from chai. Generally, it was more reminiscent of pumpkin spice.

Don’t get me wrong, the drink still tasted good — creamy and sweet, with enough sugar, spice, and caffeine to nudge a few dopamine receptors out of bed. However, the Iced Gingerbread Oatmilk Chai Latte oversells the promise of ginger; by confining the gingerbread flavor to the froth, no component fully delivers what could have been vibrant spice. This limited time offering isn’t in my top tier of seasonal beverages or chai lattes, but it will still quell a sweet treat craving.

Purchased Price: $5.45
Size: Tall – 12 fl oz.
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 290 calories, 8 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 100 milligrams of sodium, 55 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fiber, 36 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.

As we all know, only three things are certain in life: death, taxes, and pumpkin spice season. I wasn’t feeling particularly autumnal as I exited my local Starbucks into the 90-degree heat, but at least with its orangey-brown hue and dense pumpkin spice topping the color of fallen leaves, my Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte looked the part. This is a new offering for Starbucks’ fall menu, but I don’t foresee it becoming a mainstay…

Maybe this is supposed to be obvious from the drink’s name, but I certainly didn’t realize before looking it up, so let me warn you that the base of this beverage is just Starbucks’ regular chai tea latte. The unique “pumpkin cream” factor specifically refers to the cold foam on top; the drink itself doesn’t have anything in it that’s different than the usual. That felt a little unsatisfying to me at first, but hey, pumpkin spice mix is generally a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves, and with the exception of nutmeg, all of these ingredients are already present in Starbuck’s chai tea concentrate. (Others include water, black tea, cardamom, black pepper, star anise, sugar, honey, vanilla, and citric acid, if you were wondering). So, it might not be an immediate member of the pumpkin spice nuclear family, but at the very least, Starbucks’ chai tea latte is probably a not-too-distant cousin.

In any case, the pumpkin cream cold foam and its smattering of seasoning on top was as tasty as I’ve come to expect from Starbucks. It was sweet, rich, and creamy, with an appealing melt-in-your-mouth fluffiness, and the pumpkin spice topping added some nice zest (though mine had a bit too much for my liking, with one particularly saturated mouthful calling to mind that old viral challenge where people would eat a straight spoonful of cinnamon with disastrous results).

The foam topping was substantial enough that it took a few sips for me to even get to the chai, but when I did… well, do you know that feeling when you’re sipping a drink that’s so cold that you can’t actually tell what it tastes like beneath the sensation of coolness? That was the case here; of course, I knew from the velvety texture that I was drinking something meant to be indulgent, but the only immediate way I could describe the taste would just be “cold.” That blandness didn’t ever change, leading to a general feeling that I was just drinking some nicely chilled, very mildly sweet, and quite over-expensive milk. There were occasional flashes of the complex spiciness of chai, but they were more of an aftertaste than the main event they should have been, and ultimately, I would say this drink’s creamy texture was more noticeable than its taste.

So sure, the pumpkin cream cold foam is good, but it’s not a big enough part of this drink’s experience for me to really recommend; once it’s gone, the Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte effectively just becomes a plain chai tea latte, so if that doesn’t entice you, you’re better off getting your fall fix elsewhere.

Purchased Price: $7.35
Size: Grande (medium)
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 460 calories, 17 grams of fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 160 milligrams of sodium, 68 grams of total carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 66 grams of sugar, and 10 grams of protein.

I’ve been having a rough go with the Starbucks app lately. It’s completely my fault, but I just can’t seem to grasp its payment options. It’s like my brain resets after every order I successfully get through. I had a few bucks left on a gift card, and while ordering a cold brew, I somehow managed to refill said gift card with $50. I should know how to use the app by now, but I always seem to mess this up.

Long story short, I had to go back and forth with Starbucks customer service to get my money back, but every single time I opened the app to check if my balance was clear, I noticed something – the new “Summer Remix” *insert air horn blast here* Iced Chai Tea Latte with Matcha Cream Cold Foam.

While the fact it was an “app exclusive” was a little daunting to me, an apparently 97-year-old tech-challenged man, I knew I had to try that two-toned beauty, even if it meant yet again messing up the payment.

I’m not exactly a stranger to chai, but I’ve somehow never gotten it from Starbucks. If I’m there, I want coffee. That being said, I might start getting chai, because man, this latte hit the spot. You might tell me your local coffee spot does chai better, but I really liked how smooth and sweet Starbucks made it. Actually, if I’m being honest, it may have been a tad too sweet, but it worked because of the nice nutty, not quite gingery, almost nutmeg heavy eggnog-like flavor to it.

That alone would have been just fine, but the matcha cold foam is what sets this apart. I really like matcha, but sometimes I think it tastes like straight-up dirt. This did not taste like dirt. I don’t know if matcha cream cold foam has always been around at Starbucks, but it was a revelation to me. It was as if they took some green tea ice cream and threw it in a milk frother.

The texture was as good as any whipped cream I can recall having in a long time, and it added a nice little green tea offset to the black tea chai. It was the best of both worlds. Also, unlike Dunkin’s cold foam, this matcha fluff had legs. It lasted the entire length of the drink. I was able to take a sip, then lift the straw and get a hit of foam every time. That’s unprecedented. If this was sold in cans, I’d stay stocked up and probably take a few rips a day from the nozzle.

I loved it, and kept coming back to thinking that the whole thing tasted like a light eggnog-based latte, while somehow not making me think of winter. Does that make sense? It’s as if they translated eggnog into a cool summer drink.

I’m a big fan. It’s pretty expensive even for Starbucks, so maybe I shoulda just let the $50 ride, because I can definitely see myself getting this latte a few more times before the summer is out.

Purchased Price: $4.95 + 1.25 for the foam. (She had to ring it up separately b/c as mentioned, I’m bad with the app)
Size: Small
Rating: 9 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Not available due to this being an existing drink with customizations.

It turns out remixes aren’t just for songs. Starbucks is jumping on the remix bandwagon as summer winds down with three remix beverages. These are cold drink customer favorites with a twist, and one in the lineup is the Chocolate Cream Cold Brew with Caramel Syrup in a Caramel Lined Cup.

Chocolate. Caramel. Cold Foam. What more could you want? The existing Chocolate Cream Cold Brew swaps its vanilla syrup for caramel, and, as the name suggests, your friendly barista will line the cup with caramel sauce for an even bigger flavor punch.

Let me start with this: I love caramel and I love chocolate. I thought the caramel addition was nice but not a wow-factor. Because the chocolate is only in the cold foam, the caramel flavor muted it a bit. But that being said, the flavors paired well together, and it felt like I was drinking a Twix or a Snickers – something with that ingredient combination. The smell of the caramel was very apparent, and you’re paying for it too. In my area, the Chocolate Cream Cold Brew is $5.25 for a grande, and the remix added another $0.60 to the total. Just like the other cold brews in the Starbucks’ lineup, this one is smooth and the cold foam is creamy. I had no issues with the cold foam melting into my drink – it definitely stayed intact, which is a huge win for me.

One thing to note: Despite being advertised as available in the app, I had trouble finding it in mine. Turns out there wasn’t a specific pre-loaded beverage for these remixes; rather, I had to use this link. Find the remix drink you’d like at that link on your mobile device, and click the link when you get to the “Customers can order this beverage in the Starbucks app here.” That took me right to my Starbucks app, where the customizations came up automatically in my app cart. Then from there, it was easy to order.

The other thing to note is that you can create this remix version at any time by simply using the customize feature in the app. If you change the pumps of vanilla to caramel and add the syrup to line the cup, that’s all you need to create this all year round.

Purchased Price: $5.85
Size: Grande
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: Not available due to this being an existing drink with customizations.