Starbucks

My guilty pleasure and it has been for years. I always order a venti with no whipped cream. I would’ve given it a perfect score if it was healthy, but it isn’t. Definitely not an every day drink but it’s divine for a once in a while treat. It’s also an acquired taste, so I understand the mixed reviews. Sometimes the barista puts too much of that powder in it and it has a chalky texture, but other than that I have no complaints. Now I’m craving one!

This was my first drink i’ve had at Starbucks..Seeing as i’m not a coffee drinker I went for the tea.
I’ve been unable to make chai taste good at home so I tend to only drink it by buying it made, and this was perfect. I’ve become obsessed with this drink know.
It’s not overally spiced like some chai tea’s i’ve had, its a happy medium.

I can’t believe a Starbucks drink is even given the time of day on here, but oh we’ll. The passion tea is decent hot or iced, but UNSWEETENED. It is ruined by lemonade or sweetener, it ends up just tasting like pink lemonade which I find to be pointless. if you want something that doesnt taste like tea, why are you drinking tea?

Yeah, not gonna lie, I freaking love this thing.
Still figuring out how to make a good one at home. I think adding whipped cream on the top would fix anything wrong I did to it.

Whipped cream on everything pls!

I’ve been so eagerly awaiting my Red Leaf order that I’ve kind of been on a kick with these. Not healthy at all, but whatever.

I think it’s just a bit of an acquired taste. I love the odd looks I get when I’m drinking something this green!

Backlogging from a couple of days ago. I really don’t like being home. I have nothing to do so I drive around for hours and go to different coffee shops. Sometimes I’ll hit up the Starbucks in my town, drive for a couple hours, finish my drink, and stop at another one three towns over. I’m bored. I’m so, so bored.

But. Saw someone drank this on here, decided to try it.

Ick. Maybe I need to try it again, but I couldn’t handle this. It was like a wash of sweet sugar syrup at first, followed by the matcha – all vegetal and seaweed-like. I could see drinking the matcha on its own, I could see drinking the frappuccino on its own, but together… Just a sickly sweet, syrupy mess.

Apparently the last time I had this it was -16F. Kind of makes today’s morning temp of 45F sound pretty toasty. I would have assumed my tastes had matured a bit and this wouldn’t appeal to me so much, but I would have assumed wrong. Still tasty.

TV announced we obliterated a 115 year record low for this date. We had -16 F when I got up this morning. Woo Hoo! How to celebrate? With an icy frap of course. First one I’ve had in months.

Sitting in Sbux downloading an update for ITunes because my phone won’t sync to my laptop. I pretty much dislike Apple products. They are overly complicated for even simple tasks and the file system is intentionally cryptic. Give me open source anytime. While I watch the gauge spin and nothing is happening, I am sipping a green tea frappuccino. 2% milk but they say they don’t have sugar free syrup – why not? I had them cut way back on the syrup and its still very sweet. I may kick the sugar monkey off my back yet.

So we go out to breakfast as usual on Saturday morning. Our place is out of tea. How does that even happen? Didn’t anyone notice they were getting low? Of course not. I used to work with a group of guys that always expected someone else to handle it. Usually me or another guy they let go. So I coped the best I could and had hot chocolate. It was meh, but better than cola. Afterwards I was forced into Jo Ann’s fabrics (highlight of my day as you can clearly see). Town was crazy with people and police cars. I have no idea what was going on. Some kind of festival maybe, all I know is I had to drive far out of my way to get through. Thinking, maybe I should listen to local news once in a while. After getting gas and trying to drive back through crazy town, my wife said she had a free drink coming at Starbucks, so why not? Well, why not is because they were so busy my wife forgot to mention free. Dang it. I ordered green tea frappuccino – who all is surprised? Anyone? No? Turns out it was just another disappointment in my day. The new barista drowned this in sugary caramel syrup. So sickening sweet. A year ago I might have liked it. So now I am home and trying to get my iphone to sync with my laptop. It won’t. I give up. Now I’m looking at my tea stash with a threatening eye. You better not disappoint me what ever I choose next! The tea has not flinched.

You would think by now I would be over this. While my home version is more to my liking, I still have a soft spot… and brain freeze, for this one. Spent the morning in Starbucks with my son. Not really how I wanted to spend the morning but he asked and I wasn’t going to say no. I even took my own insulated Starbucks frap glass to keep it extra brain freezy. Their WiFi was really fast today. Put my home WiFi to shame.

Had to make a run to town this morning for some tests – my wife this time. Stopped at Starbucks afterwards. After making my own green tea powder concoction, theirs is way too sweet, but refreshing anyway. I need to find some xanthan gum so mine will thicken like theirs.

Anyway, checking the mail when we got home, there was a new box of samples from Teavivre. Yesterday I got a really big box from another company, and the day before another smaller one. My wife said those words… Don’t you think you have enough tea yet? Not sure if i should have told her about the Anniversary box that is on its way from Teavivre. That one is different. It is mostly more green tea powder that I’m using everyday… and… some stuff to reach free shipping.

Finally got ordering this down the way I like it. 2% milk, 1 Splenda (no syrup), and no whipped cream. That should bring the calorie count way down. They went heavy on the matcha much to my appreciation.

I noticed today this does have a slight caramel note. When we did our shopping today, I picked up a small bottle of caramel syrup and one of vanilla. I am going to play with the China green tea powder and see if I can come a little closer to the taste of the GTF.

Feb 27 and its 20 F outside with strong winds making it feel much MUCH colder than it already is, so what do I order today during our shopping trip? An icy cold beverage. I haven’t had one of these in weeks.

The guy behind the counter had to be a first day confused fellow. Had to stop him from using whole milk as I wanted fat free – apparently he didn’t know the caps are color coded. I wanted it with Splenda not the classic syrup. He started to use the pink stuff affectionately known as rat killer. And he used two scoops of matcha instead of one – I kept quiet on that one. :)

The difference between their matcha and the two I own is extremely obvious. This tastes like sencha and it is bright green. Mine are kind of lime greenish brown and taste much darker. One by Teavivre is not matcha and they don’t call it such. It is green tea powder. The Persimmon Tree Matcha Grade A, tastes halfway between Starbucks and Teavivre. It is very drinkable but not even close to Starbucks in flavor.

Anyway, I’ve had my fix and now maybe I will make it until (if) we get warm weather.

So the sun is out, the temperature hit 40 F and its Thursday. I’m so predictable. I ordered this the same way as always but man it is way sweet. Don’t care. It’s good anyway.

Having this a day early but hey it was 63 today. By Monday it will be only 19 with possibly 8 inches of snow dumped on us. I hate winter. But I love this sort of a tea drink.

Using some Si logic I have decided this stuff is a health drink. Your drinking the tea leaf, so that’s like one serving of vegetables. It’s got your dairy. The syrup is probably made from corn, or some other plant, so hey I’m counting it.

Anybody know what day it is? Come on… anybody? No, that was yesterday. This is green tea frap day! Woo Hoo! A new lady behind the counter. Great multi-tasker. This is THE best GTF ever. Seriously. It was gone in just a couple minutes – didn’t even slow down for the ice headache. The green tea powder (is it really matcha or not?) was so fresh. I have them use half the normal syrup, skim milk, and no whip cream. Today this rates a 100. My son had a buy one get one for a cute little ham & cheese sandwich with dijon mustard. The bread is almost cracker like. It went perfectly with the drink. I have no idea what it cost but I’m sure it was too much to do very often.

OK, Thursday is the anniversary of the day my wife and I met. It was a Halloween party thrown by my entire dorm floor. So in all honesty it was a kegger on one end and hairy buffalo on the other. A friend of mine stopped by after visiting his sister on campus. Seeing there was a party going on he called his sister and invited her over. She brought her roommate. As soon as I met the roommate I knew I was going to marry her. True story.

Actually that was not the end of the night. The keg ran dry right after the girls arrived so we jumped in my friends car and drove an hour to his town to go hear a local band play. Above the band was a cardboard jack-o-lantern decoration. Unintentionally the bands lights hit it and made it flash. 33 years later we still have a soft spot for flashing pumpkins.

What does that have to do with this drink? Nothing except we did our shopping today so we can enjoy our Thursday. Pretty sure it will not involve kegs or staying out long past dark. Though an hour drive is not out of the question. This is probably my last frap until spring unless we get some unseasonably warm weather.

Ok, what am I going to drink on our Thursday shopping outing when the temp starts to plummet? I can’t stand coffee and don’t like hot tea out of a paper cup. I have a lidded ceramic cup I could use but it doesn’t cool down fast enough for me. I hate winter already and it hasn’t even gotten here yet. :)

Oh well, I’ll figure it out.

Today I had the medium size (whatever they call it) with only one pump of syrup. I think I actually prefer the desert like sweetness of two pumps (if you don’t specify they use three). Anyway, with one the matcha is more earthy and green tasting though it is not bitter as I was expecting.

Hey, look at that – green tea frap and it’s not even Thursday. :) My cold companion today as I watch more class videos.