Starbucks Vanilla Latte with Lemony Swirls (product announcement)

I once read a former high-profile model say that she was encouraged to "drink her calories" instead of eat them. This applied to alcohol and, I guess, was supposed to not make one gain as much weight. I'm not sure how that works, but I think Starbucks has been onboard with the entire "drink your calories"  notion for the entire time that it's been in business.

As you can see by the picture, Starbucks is offering a new limited editions drink to help you get your calories. While I don't know how caloric this is, that rich head of whipped cream is a hint that this probably isn't going to trim your thighes any time soon. This is a "creamy" vanilla latte with lemon peel and lemon-flavored whipped cream. It's supposed to evoke lemon cream pie in the silky texture and sweetness. A short will run you 430 yen ($4.19), a tall 470 yen ($4.57), a grande 510 ($4.96) and a venti 550 yen ($5.35). It'll be around from March 19 to April 15 and you can have it hot or cold.

While I personally think that the lemon/coffee combo (this is an espresso drink) is a bit strange, I'd probably buy a short and give it a try provided that my husband was also willing to be a taste tester so that we'd both have a chance to hate it before throwing away what was left. ;-) If you give this a try, I'd love to hear your opinions of how the two tastes come together in this drink.

McCafe Orange Latte and Babychino (product information)

Image from McDonald's Japan. 

In the past 6 months or so, I bought 6 bottles of Torani syrup because doing so reduced the price by a fair margin. I was excited at the prospect of sampling a bunch of flavors at once, but the problem was that some of them were not worthy of my emotional energies. In particular, the coconut, which I had hoped to mix with the mango flavor and add to water for a refreshing tropical beverage, was less than inspiring. In fact, it really sucked.

At $4.00 a bottle, I was reluctant to simply dump it down the drain, so I tried to figure out other ways to consume it. The thing that worked was adding it to coffee. This didn't exactly make the coffee better, but it didn't really make it any worse. The coffee was strong enough that there was just a hint of coconut riding on the edge of the bitter waves. I'm down to about 1/6 of the bottle and wouldn't buy it again, but can't say that I hated using it as I have.

I think that coffee is a pretty forgiving beverage, but I would never really think about adding orange to it. In fact, citrus and coffee of any sort would seem to be a bad combination considering that one seems to alter the taste buds in a way that make the other taste funky in my experience. To each their own, but I wouldn't be trying to off-load my orange Torani in coffee (especially because the orange tasted fine mixed with water or my husband's drinks).

In addition to the orange latte, McCafe (which is the coffee arm of McDonald's) is offering something called a "babychino". As a way of introducing infants into coffee culture, they are selling steamed milk with sweet cocoa powder. The "babychino" is a mere 50 yen (about 50 cents), which is probably their way of pricing it as a "gateway drug". Later, they'll be able to hit the grown baby up for various coffee beverages in the $2.50-$3.50 (230-350 yen) range. 

Starbucks Azuki Matcha Latte

One of the things that Japan used to be famous for was copious numbers of free samples. There was a time, in days gone by, that foreigners would remark that a trip through the food areas of a department store (the basement) would net you so many samples that you could get a free lunch. I'm here to say that those days are long, long gone. Samples are offered on occasion, but the only places that reliably pony them up are Costco and some of the posher traditional rice cracker (sembei) and sweets shops. Such shops still serve a cup of tea and a small sample in many cases, but things are far spottier in markets, bakeries and department stores.

Since most customers descend on open trays and baskets of free samples as if they were living in the midst of post-war famine, I can understand why various places have cut way back on offering them. Few customers tend to actually make purchases based on such samples anyway. In fact, one enduring frustration for my husband and I is that there are some things (especially in bakeries) that look good and if samples could be had, we might buy them. I don't blame the bakeries, but rather the greedy customers. Honestly, I've seen people hover over sample baskets trying to block other people's access while they feed themselves with two fists. I'm not talking about grubby homeless people or impoverished students (I'm not sure Japan actually has any poor college students), but middle-aged women in nice clothes with shopping bags bearing the names of tony shops.

My most recent experience with free samples came along this very day while I was hanging out in a local Starbucks waiting for my husband to finish a swim and rejoin me for a convivial walk home. I rarely sit in coffee shops because I'd rather walk about. However, with my recent surgery (on Dec. 20), I really felt too tired to spend an hour walking while he swam. Before half my thyroid was extracted and I attained a big piratey scar across my throat, I would have happily gotten some extra exercise instead of occupying space for the price of an expensive cup of coffee. As I sat there reading a medieval novel on my ancient Palm, one of the Starbucks employees walked over with a tray of samples and told me it was something for New Year's, but she said it so fast that I only caught the word "matcha" (green tea). Looking at it, I knew that it was a latte by the color, but I didn't know what the little brown swirl on the top was. It turned out that it was azuki (sweetened red bean) sauce. Frankly, I thought it might be chocolate syrup.

I'm not a huge fan of green tea. It's in the category of "if they serve it to me for free, I'll drink it, but I won't order it myself". I've tried a lot of green-tea flavored things including KitKats, cookies, cakes, bean cakes, ice cream, and actual tea, of course. On occasion, I've really enjoyed it because the right balance of bitter and sweet can really create something tremendous with green tea. At other times, I've felt far too much bitter or grassiness in the mix and that the green tea element was overbearing. To my taste buds, green tea flavoring is like coffee flavoring. It's easy to get wrong, and hard to get right.

This is how I remember my experiences when I'm out of the apartment and forgot to put my notebook back in my bag. Thank goodness for all of the advertising tucked into free packets of pocket tissues.

I sniffed the sample with interest and noted that the scent had some nutty elements as well as the familiar green tea scent. The taste was milky with a strong green tea flavor, but nearly zero bitterness. The creamy full fat milk and enough sugar to make it sweet but nowhere near cloying offset any unpleasantness that may have come from using such a strong green tea flavor. The azuki, which I perceived as chocolate based on the color and appearance, was too small in quantity to really add much, but it may have added a dimension that wasn't overtly "beany". It may have just added rather more depth of flavor. In fact, one thing that I really liked about this was that drinking it was such a multilayered experience. The texture was creamy, but not overly rich and the flavor was strong, but not overbearing. The manner in which the latte was made or the tea roasted left me with a good nutty finish.

I really liked this, and would actually buy one for myself now that I've tried it. Considering my relative indifference to green tea, that says a lot about how good it is and the power of offering free samples. I'm not sure how matcha purists would feel about this, but I thought it was truly delicious. That being said, don't be fooled into thinking the fact that this is green tea with red beans makes it healthy. If you drink one, you are essentially having dessert as a short one with regular milk has 180 calories, a tall about 300, and a venti nearly 400 calories. Since this is likely to disappear after the season is well and truly over, I'd recommend skipping dessert one day soon and enjoying one while you can.

Tirol Soy Green Tea Latte Chocolate

I've been avoiding the little squares of Tirol chocolates for awhile now. Part of the reason for this is that the flavors have been in re-runs for some time, and unappealing ones at that. Another reason is that what has been on offer hasn't really sparked a fire under my ass. That being said, I'm not sure why I don't blithely just buy every single flavor and review it because each little 1-inch (2.5 cm.) candy is only 20 yen (about 24 cents). I have little to lose except the time it takes to whine about the sub-par ones.

It's that sort of reckless spending that brings this green tea chocolate to my dear readers today. I'm not a huge fan of green tea, but, hey, 20 yen. I found this at 7-11, but you can get them at any convenience store at the moment. This has 60 calories, which is a little higher than usual for these chocolates. I'm guessing that has something to do with how much sugar is packed into its white chocolate base. The initial hit of flavor is intensely sweet, but is chased by green tea bitterness.

The "latte" part of this is supposed to be the white chocolate center. I'm guessing that is where most of the intense sweetness comes from. The bitterness comes from the green part that serves as a bread to this little candy sandwich. The center is a chewy little gummi which lends texture rather than flavor. Perhaps it's supposed to be the "soy" portion, but honestly, I detect no soy flavor at all. It doesn't do anything at all for this besides stop it from being even sweeter and fattier.

If you're a green tea fan, I think you might really enjoy this. The green tea flavor comes across quite well and is well balanced by the sweet white chocolate. If you're sensitive to white chocolate, this still may be a bit much for you. All in all, I want to give this a happy rating because I thought it was good for a green tea chocolate, but I know I'll never buy another one again. So, this is a conditional "indifferent" rating. I thought this was enjoyable, but just not my kind of thing.