Starbucks Japan Wants to Fatten You Up

Images from Starbucks Japan.

Starbucks Japan would like you to get your tiramisu on in liquid form, because you get your calorie bombs far too slowly if you have to pause long enough to masticate them. Yesterday, Starbucks Japan started selling a very decadent looking coffee with little chunks of what appear to be bits of cake floating on top of a frappucino base. This is the sort of thing I wouldn't buy, but I'd probably go to the local Starbucks in Asagaya and buy a coffee and hope they'd give me a sample of this while I occupied their precious space and took advantage of their Wi-fi.

They also rolling out three types of cake based on various sugary coffee beverages. Each variety if chock full of sugary "chunks" and sauces:

• Caramel macchiato - cookie crumbles, caramel chocolate, white chocolate chunks and bitter caramel sauce
• Caffe mocha - white chocolate drizzle, black cocoa cookie crumble, ganache cream and chocolate chunks
• Latte - white chocolate topping and white chocolate "powder", white chocolate chunks, milk cream (like condensed milk in taste) and a cookie base

The slices of cake look great, but they all seem a bit overloaded with sweet things. That being said, I'd bet dollars to donuts that these are not insanely sweet, but they are fatty. I very rarely bought cake or sweets at Starbucks in Japan because there was always a plethora of fantastic bakeries around me. I'd buy a pastry at one of them and take it into Starbucks and the employees never seemed to care. Though these look pretty tempting, the baked goods sold at Starbucks were never appealing because they were sealed in plastic just like convenience store pastries and could never live up to the fresh stuff I could get nearby. I don't think these would change my habits, but the mixture of ingredients would be tempting.