The Truth! Starbucks Coffees Are Just Desserts in a Cup

In this new episode of Hugo in Wonderland, I was in Lisbon with a friend, not Portuguese mind you, because a self-respecting Portuguese person has a bit more sense, who invited me to grab a coffee. You can imagine my reaction when we ended up at a Starbucks. I genuinely thought that Starbucks had failed in Portugal, but apparently a few still survive in super tourist areas, for all the obvious reasons.

Since it was hot, I ordered a matcha frappuccino with two blonde espresso shots and whipped cream. A simple order, for a change heheheh. My other go-to alternative is an iced latte with two espresso shots, vanilla, caramel, and whipped cream. I have a fairly extensive mental library of pre-programmed Starbucks orders for both hot and cold drinks, and that’s not even counting the seasonal promotional drinks. If something has unicorns and sprinkles on the menu, doesn’t have to be from Starbucks… I am absolutely going to try it.

A Starbucks Pilgrim

When you travel a lot, you pick up certain habits, and i guess  Starbucks is one of them for me, especially in parts of the world where good coffee is genuinely hard to find. Places like the United States or Canada, where walking into a Starbucks can be a solid choice or sometimes the only decent option in the area. But as with any “amusement park” with two thousand options, I tend to go straight for the most ridiculous combinations.

I remember ordering one of my imaginary drinks at a Starbucks in Taiwan, and the barista was completely thrilled because I was apparently the first person to ever order something not on the menu. Nothing quite like inventing a new absurd drink on the spot. Also I once ordered in the UK, where the barista couldn’t quite figure out my drink because people there mostly go to Starbucks to eat incredibly expensive cookies and drink tea. And in the United States, a friend tasted my order, clearly attracted by the swirling colors of the drink, made a face, and asked what on earth I was drinking, a cake? ahahhaah. It was, of course another absurd combination with whipped cream on top…

How is this a Coffee Shop?

All of this is just to say that I am, apparently, something of an expert on the subject. But the real point I want to make is this, in some countries, if you want a halfway decent coffee, you don’t have many choices beyond a franchise, and Starbucks sometimes ends up being that franchise, just like Macdonalds. But in every other situation, Starbucks is really not the place to drink coffee. Not good coffee, anyway. And I know this because I have actually tried many of their coffees without all the extra add-ons.

They are for all intent and purposes passable coffee, and i get why, they want to be good enough for most people, and when you go wide with a product you kinda go bland.

For a while, when I would go to Starbucks, I would deliberately order simpler drinks, trying where possible to explore different blends and roast profiles, always without sweeteners. It was always an expensive coffee, but never anything remarkable. Try ordering their version of a milk with coffee (latte, macchiato, cappuccino, flat white, cortado…) without sugar sometime, and then walk to the café around the corner and order the same thing there. Even if the corner café uses basic coffee and milk, the Starbucks coffee will most of the times fall flat and will burn your wallet.

My very unscientific conclusion is that Starbucks blends, whether lighter or darker roasted, are made either to disappear completely into the drink so you can barely detect any coffee flavor at all, or to be so aggressively roasted that no matter what you mix with it, there is always a slightly strange aftertaste. Their blends are simply not ideal for plain milky coffee drinks, let alone any type of straight coffee without anything else, these are not flavorful coffees to drink straight.

Give me Those Caffeinated Desserts

So since I am the type who drinks a variation of a milky coffee (like lattes or cappuccinos) about 90% of the time, always without sugar, when i get to a Starbucks my choices tend to go with heavily sweetened drinks, with artificial matcha, flavored syrups, and enough caffeine, sugar, and fat to send my blood glucose levels on holiday. None of this is a surprise to anyone. Of course they are caloric bombs. Nothing there is remotely good for you, not in those quantities.

But here is the thing, that is precisely the point. It is not nutrition, it is pleasure. It is a dessert. And that is my whole point, really. Because I treat them as desserts, they become something to have veryyyyy occasionally and with real moderation, like bubble tea, a fruit smoothie, or an ice cream. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of those things. They are fun, they are worth trying, and they are genuinely enjoyable. Just not every day or even every week. Because trust me, I have tried that experiment and it does not end well.

I treat any and all Starbucks drinks as an occasional treat you let someone drag you into, at which point you smile because now it is time to confuse another barista with a request they have never seen before.

So Some Starbucks Tips and Tricks

If you find yourself at a Starbucks and want to make the most out of it, here are a few things worth knowing.

• If you want something that actually tastes like coffee, skip Starbucks HAHAHAHA! Even other franchises that just use one cheap blend of coffee tend to give you a pretty serviceable cup of coffee, why pay twice at Starbucks for less than half the quality or quantity, no point!
• If you embrace the dessert philosophy fully, go seasonal. The limited-time promotional drinks are where Starbucks genuinely shines, because they are designed from the start to be ridiculous and fun rather than pretending to be serious coffee.
• When customizing, ask for fewer pumps of syrup than the default. The standard Starbucks drinks are often sweeter than they need to be even by dessert standards. Asking for half the syrups brings it to a more reasonable level of sweetness and you can still taste the other flavors underneath.
• Also dont go all out of flavourings, there is a reason you dont see a cake with all the favourings in it, it becomes a mess of flavours and not enjoyable, think one flavour and work around it, vanilla is great with whipped cream, with chocolate, hazelnut is great with chocolate, caramel is great by itself or with whipped cream, you get what i mean!
• If matcha is your thing, keep in mind that the matcha Starbucks uses is a already sweetened and a blended powder, not ceremonial grade matcha or anything close to it (there are of course exceptions, in Asia, like Japan or South Korea they really do use the good stuff). It tastes good as part of a blended drink precisely because it is designed as a flavoring ingredient, not as a tea, so manage your expectations accordingly.

And that’s it, hope you enjoyed my rant on Starbucks coffees, don’t get me wrong, you can see… I am a customer and i don’t have any real negative view of Starbucks (besides being a bit less friendly than they used to be to hangout in or use the toilet), I just think that people still tend to view it has a coffee shop and its really not, for me it’s more like a ice cream parlor that also sells coffee and sandwiches ;D Until next time, have a awesome day!