What better way to end the week, w/ exciting news for New England natives or those who like new-england-type flavors: starbucks’ newest flavor is maple. It can be had as a maple latte, maple frappuccino, or – the drink that starbucks is pushing – a maple macchiato which, aside from its alliterative prowess, has a higher proportion of espresso, prob to help cut the sweetness that inherently goes w/ maple flavoring which they call “maple sauce“. (doesn’t sound like 100% maple syrup, does it. which, while wholesome, has a subtle flavor.) us maple fans are grateful starbucks decided to roll out maple at all stores (it was originally intro’d last year in New England only)

this prob won’t be the Best Blog Item Ever Written, but at least it’ll be a blog item posted (rather than the desert this place has been … very bizzy lately), and it is, of course, about starbucks: namely, new Pomegranate and Tangerine Frappuccinos made w/ fruit juice & Tazo tea. officially, frappuccinos should be coffee-based; if it’s fruit, call it a $#!& smoothie. but they can’t call it a smoothie cuz smoothie implies a certain degree of healthfulness i.e. fruit etc, and these are really just juice & ice. which makes them no less welcome - fruit-ish is an ok alternative to the usual coffee/dairy, and anything thick & icy is good. and lookit sbux, jumping on the pom wagon. really they could call it a slurpee but that name’s already taken. (sbux vets might recall that they kinda had these last yr in mango & citrus flavors.) meanwhile, also new at sbux: Iced Cafe con Leche, made w/ coffee, syrup & whole milk

Hey, sorry to bog this item down w/ activist stuff but TODAY the Senate Commerce Committee is debating Net neutrality. If you’re not up on it, here’s a good summary. Make a quick call to these slacker senators and ask them to support Internet freedom via the Snowe-Dorgan Amendment:

Chairman Ted Stevens (Alaska): 202-224-3004
AZ Sen John McCain 202-224-2235. AR Sen Mark Pryor 202-224-2353. FL Sen Bill Nelson 202-224-5274. NJ Sen Frank Lautenberg 202 224 3224. LA Sen David Vitter 202 224-4623. MS Sen Trent Lott 202-224-6253. MT Sen Conrad Burns 202-224-2644. NE Sen. Ben Nelson 202-224-6551. NV Sen John Ensign 202-224-6244. NH Sen John Sununu 202-224-2841. OR Sen Gordon Smith 202-224-3753. SC Sen Jim DeMint 202 224-6121. TX Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison 202-224-5922. VA Sen George Allen 202-224-4024. WV Sen John Rockefeller 202-224-6472.

The fact that banana is Starbucks’ summer ‘06 flavor: not news. But it was officially announced today, along w/ the fact that (and here’s what prompts today’s item) Starbucks will hand out 90K bananas to customers in 21 cities to kick-off the campaign… “to celebrate the season w/ the spirit of Carnival“, whatever the F that means. No data yet on which cities get the treasured free bananas (let it please be us, dear god, let it be us). But while we’re here, what say we go ahead & list the new dwinks, which reportedly use real banana puree & which’ll be avail til aug 30: Banana Coconut Frappuccino®, Banana Caramel Frappuccino®, & Banana Mocha Frappuccino®, which i dunno, does that really sound like it’d be good? certainly not as good as malt

Boy talk about tailor-made for this blog: Starbucks Mud Pie ice cream bar. How can you lose w/ coffee + ice cream (not to mention sbux). itsa choc cookie w/ coffee ice cream coated in choc. But really it’s just sad, in that it embodies the inevitable surrender to the American appetite. Cuz Starbucks did try a more moderate approach w/ its clever Frappuccino bar, like a coffee version of a fudgesicle and much leaner than the 350 cals this has. But unfortunately the demand is for more-more-more in ice cream prods. As an aside, these ice-cream-on-cookie things are a hot trend, w/ similar items by Dove, Nestle/Toll House, Kemp’s, as well as a big expansion of the Klondike line

note slight discrepancy between bar on box as opposed to real life

1. Starbucks has 2 new spring bevs based on green tea (”real Japanese matcha ground green tea leaves”): green tea latte - green tea w/ steamed milk, and blackberry green tea frappuccino which is only semi-new, really just a twist on the already-existent green tea frapp. Green tea is a big seller for sbux, acc to sbux employees who don’t know they’re being quoted here. haha sbux pr dept.

2. Meanwhile, for 2006, its annual new summer flavor frappuccino will be ta-da BANANA. “fresh banana pureé blended w/ coffee, milk, & ice.” banana + coffee = hmm. Remember last summer’s flavor was mint mocha chip; but no flavor can ever compare w/ the late, lamented mocha MALT frapp. some sbux stores still carry malt powder but the drink’s not on the menu, thereby dooming its prospects for those not in the know

Of course the photo here shows an entirely diff product, starbucks’ new iced coffee which has been addressed here previously, is now in stores, & which tastes somewhere between the milkier bottled frappuccino & the stronger espresso DoubleShot.

*no links today but with such exciting news, who misses the links, right?

Starbucks saving mankind: Mar 15 (tomorrow), it’ll host a “coffee break” (its “first-ever“)*, wherein it’ll give away free 12-oz cupsa coffee 10 am - noon. At stores and also employees’ll be on the streets dispensing cups via “giant coffee backpacks“. Coincidentally, the chain is simultaneously launching its “annual brewing sale” wherein you can buy coffeemakers at low-low prices. But really that’s just a coincidence, that it happens at the same time. FREE BREWED COFFEE (not instant!?!) I mean, what a wonderful altruistic campaign

*Quotes = pressreleasespeak

Next wk Starbucks intros a “new” bev, the Marble Mocha Macchiato. It’s not really new, but a big hoo-ha prod intro’ll cover the demise of Chantico, the profound choc drink so super-rich (they made it w/ cocoa butter), it wuz more dessert than drink. Marble mocha = white choc mocha syrup, milk, espresso, & choc drizzle. Weird thing: they’re free-sampling it Feb 15, missing the big Val-Day opp by a day. Meanwhile, coming to conv stores in march are 2 new bottled drinks: 1. Starbucks Iced Coffee, a “milky sweetened coffee drink sold in 8-oz cans” (which um is different from Frapp & DoubleShot how?) 2. Strawberry Frappuccino.

Adorably manic Starbucks has (yet another) new ltd-edition drink: cinnamon dolce latte. Any coffeebev is newsworthy round here, but thissuz also notable cuz the co seems increasingly committed to the ltd-ed thing, above & beyond the usual pepp, pump, & eggnog. Used 2B that ltd eds only showed up at holidays & beginning of summer not in January. Has Starbucks maybe seen the studies showing that consumers prize the limited avail of special-editions, & that spec eds ultimately encourage purchase of the core product? Anyway, sbux sites already have revus of this cinn dolce latte… “mild cinnamony flavor” w/ notes of “caramelized sugar” & “maple latte” tragically avail only in New England.

NYCE wasn’t up & running in Feb and thus couldn’t wax when Starbucks released its coffee liqueur. THANK GOD they got another: Starbucks™ cream liqueur, which will surely do to Bailey’s what the coffee liqueur did to Kahlua. It’d be EZ here to gush over the “artful blend of cream, spirits, & hint of sbux coffee” or mention the alky level (15% for this, 20% for the coffee liqueur) or caffeine (cream: 9 mgs. coffee liqueur: 34. regular joe: 100++). But cooler are these floating factoids: Cordial-liqueur mkt = $4-5 bill. Cream liqueur market has 22 mil consumers, 3X more than for coffee liqueur. Starbucks research sez that nearly 50% of its “loyal patrons” drink coffee liqueur and are 9X more likely than the nat’l average to buy it. Anyway, just in time for the holidays tra la la

opened on friday 8-26. can east plano be far behind???