Yahoo Finance Starbucks' New Holiday Drinks Are Almost Too Cute to Handle
'Tis the season to go all kitschy-whimsical in the name of spreading holiday cheer-because if there's any time of year when you can get away with wearing light-up sweaters and drinking eggnog out of a glass moose cup, this is it-and Starbucks gets that. The brand's come out with all kinds of holiday gifts this year (including a gingerbread café), but no one's embracing the twee-ness of the season quite like its stores in Hong Kong, which have rolled out two specialty drinks and a reindeer parfait that seem meant to rack up Instagram likes.
Seriously, just try not to squeal when you take in this chocolate-raspberry parfait, which is topped with chocolate "antlers" and a red nose.
Brand Eating brought the treat to our attention, along with two limited-edition drinks: the Teavana Christmas Ribbon Latte and Santa Hat Latte. The former, which looks a bit like a wreath (or something the Grinch would sip as he judges those Whos down in Whoville), is a green tea-based latte made with a splash of pomegranate juice, then topped with milk foam and a pomegranate drizzle. You could hack a similar drink by adding a pump of raspberry syrup to a green tea latte-or Frappuccino-then asking for a drizzle of syrup on top.
Equally Instagram-worthy is the Santa Hat Latte, a dark chocolate mocha latte topped with strawberry whipped cream, strawberry drizzle and a dollop of whipped cream on top. The closest you could get to that in the States would be asking for a raspberry drizzle-going heavy on the drizzle-atop the whipped cream on a regular mocha, with an extra pouf of whipped cream in the center.
Clearly, though, Starbucks Hong Kong takes the holiday season very seriously. The brand's website features an entire 'festive desserts' menu, which includes mini cranberry red velvet cakes, orange-chocolate butter cake, and this massive, treat-the-whole-family-sized Xmas Earl Grey Chiffon Cake, which is garnished with edible chocolate "Merry Christmas" decorations.
Stateside, Starbucks has banked on nostalgia over cuteness, with its new Snickerdoodle Hot Chocolate, and jumped on the Pokémon Go craze about five months after it took the world by storm, with the launch of its Pokémon Go-inspired Frappuccino. It's a vanilla bean frapp blended with raspberry syrup and freeze-dried blackberries, so it looks like you stuck a couple Rattatas in a Vitamix, blended them with ice and topped it off with whipped cream. It redefines 'Pokemon grinding,' and was designed to celebrate the fact that 7,800 Starbucks stores in the U.S. have turned into PokéStops or Pokémon Gyms this December.
If you're not the cutesy type and prefer your coffee to match your soul-bold, straightforward, and, arguably, humorless-Starbucks has got you covered there, too. Its launching a Cascara Latte in January that's gimmick-free: It's made using the fruit of the coffee cherry, giving it a subtle maple flavor.
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