Starbucks

O-M-G!!! This is soooo good! I actually ordered two venti-sized versions of this today. :P What can I say? I was just in a chai tea kind of mood, and this is definitely hitting the spot! Mmmm! Love, love, swoon!! ;)

Mmmm!!! Uber spicy!!!

Starbuck’s Chai Tea Latte doesn’t leave anything to be desired, except more when your cup is empty. It’s delicious, hot, creamy, and ultra-chai spicy!

The cinnamon wasn’t overpowering, so I was still able to taste the other spices underneath. That’s uncommon in chais I’ve had, where usually the predominant (and sometimes only) taste is cinnamon.

This latte was so spicy it actually burned my throat a little on the way down! Not a bad burn. More like piquance. Totally unexpected!

This is a good place to start if you’ve never had chai before. It’s a great experience and woke me up for work. I ordered it with skim milk, and it was still frothy and creamy and delicious. Two thumbs way up! :)

This is one of the best drinks I’ve ever had in my entire life! Don’t bother to drink this tea hot without the lemonade. Suffice it to say, it’s not a pleasant experience (see oozing rose hips: http://steepster.com/Charoma/posts/85951).

But this, THIS is my one true love!

My summer addiction. Some have their weekends on the Cape; others have their parade of trashy novels. I have Tazo Chai Tea Latte. I take mine with an extra pump of chai, 2% milk, and just a bit of ice. My venti Chai makes me very, very happy, and I have been drinking one at least four times a week all summer. Thankfully, I received a Starbucks gift card for my birthday, so my addiction hasn’t broken the bank.

I have been logging only NEW teas that I drink. I recently read a couple notes from people who simply log EVERY tea they drink. I wonder whether that’s the way to go, since I haven’t been drinking new-to-me teas all summer….

My friend dragged me out with her so I could watch her horseback ride and made me miss lunch. To make up for it (and since I really wasn’t that hungry anyway) she treated me to Starbucks. I have been craving matcha recently and this is the only place that I can access it easily. It might not be the creme de la creme of matcha, but it is still tasty!

Tall with soy, no cream

Backlogging from Friday Aug 12

16 oz, soy, and whipped cream

I have been wanting to try this, so I dragged my boyfriend with me to get one. At first, I thought that the green tea was really bitter. As I kept drinking it, the better the taste got and the more I liked it. It is really nice to have on a warm day and it was my very first taste of matcha. I wanted to try it in something before I decided to get a tin for myself. I am glad to say that it did not put me off of matcha and it makes me want to try it for myself even more now.

Even though I don’t really care for coffee, I would go to Starbucks again to get this. It was really tasty.

16oz, soy, no whipped cream.

Oh, yum. Oh, calories, Oh, not so bad calorie-wise without the whipped cream. Must ask if there’s sugar syrup in here and get it without next time — but mondo refreshing. I love matcha blended with soy milk, and this cold blend goes down nice and smoooooth. Sure, straight-up matcha is better, but got a milk-shakey type drink, this is great.

I’ve had a few of these wiothout the extra syrup — much nicer aftertaste — and with both soy and dairy milk. Soy complements matcha better. This is a really refreshing treat that6 I dont mind paying the remium price for, because I cannot (yet) make it at home.

Sweet but not cloying, grassy, creamy. LOVE.

1 short (8 oz) with soy.

In. Love.

I like matcha with soy milk — like it a lot. I first tried the combo in the Matcha Monsoon smoothie from Booster Juice. In a nice warm latte, the combo’s even better. A bit sweet — does anyone know if I can get this baby unsweetened? The matcha itself is vegetal and creamy, too.

All in all, a bit heavy with the soy milk and sweetener. I’be be willing to try this with half skim, half 2% milk, or maybe even with all skim, to see if it’s a bit lighter that way. But when I’m willing to drink 150 calories, this is YUM.

Tall, 2 scoops matcha, 2 pumps raspberry, 2 pumps peppermint. Warning: This looks really nasty lol. Needed something to detox myself from the venti iced Americano w/ a total of 16 pumps of syrup I had while meeting with my new boss yesterday.

An awesome indulgence every once in a while. When I have a photo shoot where I have to send the photos quickly, I make sure to head to Starbucks to take advantage of their wifi and pick up a XL Tazo to make me work faster!
Great tasting tea, which I usually get with soy milk which I find makes it a bit creamier.
Also, I prefer the Tazo liquid base to Second Cup’s powdered base. I find the powder never fully dissolves, so it is in your last 2 or 3 sips. Good one Starbucks!

Flavored teas are a bit out of my element but It’s a solid masala, the only thing I didn’t like is the vanilla.

The Starbucks-store mix varies by the barista (how many squirts is standard folks?) but overall this is a decent thing to get at a Starbucks if you need a little calories and not too much caffiene. Get nonfat for a fewer calories, the spice mix flavor stands up well even with less fat. Good hot or cold — let the ice melt some in the summer to combat the dehydration from drinking the sugary mix.

Giving up on stovetop chai for a few days/weeks/months. Stopped with hubby tonight and got a grande soy chai tea latte. I like it with the added water as that is how I would prepare it at home. I forgot how nice of a spice tazo’s blend is. Quite the tingle left in my throat. Mmmmm…this was just what I needed tonight!

This is such a guilty pleasure.
I mean, 440 calories in one drink? That’s pretty killer.

But I love these things!

It’s very, very sweet. The matcha flavor is strong, but there’s so much milk and whipped cream that any bitterness from the green tea vanishes completely. It’s like drinking green tea ice cream, but sweeter. Much, much sweeter.

Also, as I was sitting at my desk enjoying the drink, one of our residents came in and kept looking at my drink out of the corner of his eye.
“Is that green?” he finally asked.
“Yes sir!” I answer in my perky I’m-working-hard voice.
“…thank God, I thought my eyes were going wacko on me.”

This is actually from PANERA but it’s not on this site and I didn’t feel like adding it this morning. ;)

Oh goodness I am so glad I found Chai Tea Lattes. This is the first time I’ve had one – and man am I happy. I have been on the brink of starting the coffee habit for almost a year now. I just found my number one defense. I’ve tried little fruity smoothies instead of frappes, I’ve tried hot tea instead of hot coffee… But quite frankly, nothing delivers the KICK coffee does paired with the bold flavor to wake me up in the morning. Until I found this.

I MUST find a way to create a chai tea latte at home. This taste wonderful. It’s bold, it’s creamy, it’s hot, it’s caffeinated. I am so awake right now. It’s even a mood lifter. It reminds me of pumpkin pies. <3 I want to mix chai tea with some kind of pumpkin tea now for the fall. Please, tell me how to make this thing. I do not have a milk steamer at home. Can you make lattes without a steamer? Can you steam milk with out a steamer? So many questions. I must know!

I love chai tea lattes. I am converted.

So sweet….

Only with soy milk!

As is probably not too difficult to discern from the few times I’ve mentioned them, I am not a huge fan of Starbucks, and yet, here I am giving them my money in exchange for tasty drinks! Inconsistent, you say? Well yes. Willingness to bend/selectively forget my “principles” in the pursuit of curiosity is just ONE of my many attractive character traits! Others include: tendency toward snark, tendency toward whining, the inability to say “fantastic” without sounding sarcastic, AND passive aggressiveness!

Anyway, I saw this when I accompanied a friend in pursuit of a matcha latte to starbucks today and decided to give it a go. I really like the taste of yuzu, it is so refreshing and so lightly sweet, yum! And that is basically what the drink tasted like, the light citrusy taste of yuzu, not very sweet at all, very lightly sour and just a hint of the underlying green tea at the end. In fact, I’d say there wasn’t enough of a green tea taste to it – it could have used more presence. Still it was a great drink for the half hour walk home in the summer heat.

Firstly, I should say we don’t have a Starbucks where I live. The closest one used to be about an hour and 15 minutes away. We used to make an event of going to the mall when we were in high school. We referred to it as ‘going off the mountain’. One of the fun things about going off the mountain is shopping. One of the other fun things is Starbucks and Krispy Kreme. (If you don’t live in the south and are addicted to Dunkin’ Donuts, I feel for you. I used to be like you. Then I learned better.) Now I only go to Starbucks if I drive almost two hours away to a slightly-near bigger city. So basically, I don’t get to drink frappes very often.

Anyway. I usually get a coffee frappe with an extra shot of espresso, a pump of caramel and a pump of vanilla with non-fat whipped topping. Last time I made the long trip to the closest bigger city, I got a green tea frappe because I didn’t want the coffee (it gets to my stomach if I drink it a lot), but I couldn’t go to a city without going to a Starbucks. It happens to you if you live in BFE.

So this frappe. It was actually really good. It didn’t taste even remotely like any green tea I’ve ever had, but it did taste a LOT like the green tea ice cream I get at the sushi bar in town. Almost like a green tea ice cream milkshake. I don’t know what kind of green tea they use to make it, but if I did I’d make it at home with my magic bullet, man. It’s super refreshing and definitely great to re-engerize you after a couple hours wandering around a giant mall.

I’m probably going to get this next time I get to hit up a Starbucks. And I’m going to talk to the guy who runs the local coffee place to see if he can recreate it.

I really like this stuff.. Very sweet, though.
It’s best cold, but is nice hot as well.

I definitely have to be in the mood for one of these.

I can’t stop… I need a Starbucks intervention (no, seriously I do)! LOL, this one didn’t have as much matcha as I prefer, but still a nice summer treat :-D

I didn’t realize Starbucks blended drinks were on here! This is one of summer guilty pleasures…I like it with more matcha versus more cream/syrup or whatever “sweetness” that is. When I have a sweet tooth or want ice cream I will usually go get one of these and it gets the trick done with no problem. I love this drink!