Starbucks’ New Valentine’s Day Drinks Taste Like Your Favorite Chocolate Treats
One tastes like chocolate-covered strawberries, and the other chocolate hazelnut.
Photo courtesy of Starbucks
Ah, Valentine’s Day. Sometimes it’s for star-crossed lovers; sometimes for Starbucks lovers.
For those in the latter category all across the globe, Starbucks is introducing a flurry of festive, romantic new beverages. Which of the eight Love at First Sip beverages is available to you — now, for a limited time, while supplies last — depends on where in the world you live.
Coffee drinkers in the United States and Canada are being treated to two new sweet sips — Chocolate Hazelnut Cookie Cold Brew and Chocolate Covered Strawberry Creme Frappuccino. We had a chance to try both beverages ahead of their release and found both to be decadently delicious — just the kind of thing you’d want to sip with your sweetie, enjoy with a pal, or treat yourself to on or ahead of romance’s big day.
The Chocolate Hazelnut Cookie Cold Brew features cold brew coffee (obviously) and sweet hazelnut syrup. It’s topped with chocolate-cream cold foam and chocolate cookie crumbles. Rich, nutty and luxurious and just the right amount of sweet, it’s basically like drinking a chocolate hazelnut cookie in creamy coffee form. So yummy.
The Chocolate Covered Strawberry Creme Frappuccino, meanwhile, tastes pretty much exactly like a chocolate-covered strawberry — or maybe a chocolate bon-bon with strawberry-cream filling plucked from a heart-shaped box. The blended beverage combines ice, milk, strawberry puree and java chips, layered over strawberry puree, sitting pretty on the bottom of your cup. A topping of whipped cream turns the drink into a perfect Valentine’s Day dessert or indulgent pick-me-up.
Both these drinks (available in U.S. and Canadian stores and via the Starbucks app) are swoonworthy — chocolate-inflected cold drinks that will surely warm caffeine lovers’ hearts. (Starbucks’ hearts-and-flowers-forward Valentine’s Day drinkware collection is already on U.S. store shelves.)
But what about the other six drinks in the Love at First Sip lineup?
At locations in Latin America and the Caribbean, starting on February 9, Starbucks will offer two alluring pink drinks for the Valentine’s Day season: Cupid Cream Shaken Tea Strawberry & Hibiscus and Cupid Frappuccino Strawberry and Mint. In China, starting February 8, Starbucks will serve up a Cocoa Raspberry Flavored Mocha, featuring pink foam and served either hot or iced.
Photo courtesy of Starbucks
Starbucks locations in Japan are now featuring an ode to a chocolate opera cake: Rouge Opera Frappuccino Blended Cream. Combining “dark Frappuccino powder, Frappuccino chips and almond milk, topped with a layer of whipped cream, chocolate glaze sauce and gold dust powder,” the drink is available in white chocolate as well.
In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Starbucks locations are embracing caramel with a hot and cold variation on the same drink: Golden Caramel White Hot Chocolate and the new Golden Caramel White Chocolate Frappuccino.
And Starbucks locations in the Asia Pacific are offering a Mocha Kiss for this season of romance. Served hot or cold, the beverage is “infused with rich chocolate sauce and topped with chocolate whipped cream… and chocolate drizzle” and is, the brand promises, a “chocolate-lovers’ dream.”
Sure sounds like it’s time for a romantic, coffee-centric trip around the world …
Related Content:
.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.231.174.suffix/1671477370644.jpeg)
