Starbucks’ New Lavender Drinks Are the Perfect Way To Ring in Spring
One is for coffee lovers, the other for tea drinkers.
Photo courtesy of Starbucks
Springtime brings thoughts of fresh flowers — pretty pastel petals, dizzyingly heady aromas — but not always in the context of coffee. Starbucks is trying to change that with its two new spring beverages featuring a flavor new to the brand, bringing the “sweet and subtle floral notes” of lavender to both an iced coffee drink and an iced tea beverage.
Iced Lavender Oatmilk Latte features Starbucks Blonde Espresso, oat milk, ice and lavender flavor. Iced Lavender Cream Oatmilk Matcha, meanwhile, combines matcha and oat milk over ice and tops it off with lavender cream cold foam.
The beverages were conceived during a trip the Starbucks beverage developers took last summer to a lavender farm in Sequim, Washington (a.k.a. the “Lavender Capital of North America), not far from the coffee chain’s Seattle headquarters. Lavender flavor had been a popular request from its baristas and other employees, the brand says.
“We were in the fields cutting various stalks of lavender, smelling different varietals, looking at the flowers ... trying not to get stung by bees,” Patrick Penny, a lead beverage developer, recalls in a press statement.
From there, Penny and his team developed a specialty lavender-infused honey latte, which they served at the original Starbucks location in Seattle’s Pike Place Market.
Photo courtesy of Starbucks
“It was so cool to take that experience in the lavender field and turn it into different Starbucks beverages,” he says, adding that he hoped the flavor would please customers and employees and capture “the feeling of springtime.”
The two new seasonal beverages, which will hit Starbucks locations nationwide on Thursday, March 7, are made with a proprietary lavender powder, which Penny says his team found was the best format to highlight the flowery flavor’s “subtle sweetness.”
“It reminds me of lavender ice cream,” he says.
We had a chance to try both new beverages and we can totally see what Penny means. Each was subtle, creamy and pleasantly sweet. Neither tasted remotely like soap, which had been my concern – just freshly floral and maybe a little fruity and nutty. The oat milk featured in both drinks pairs particularly well with the lavender flavor.
The matcha is especially pretty: green, obviously, with lavender-colored, lavender-flavored cold foam at the top. (Note: Though the drink is made with oat milk, the lavender cream cold foam contains actual dairy.) The drink resembles a purple flower with a green stem and leaves — so springy and lovely.
The combination of blond espresso, oat milk and lavender powder make for a subtle, gently tasty and just sweet enough latte. We liked the way a little bit of purple lurked like a pretty surprise at the bottom of our cup.
“We aimed to create a really balanced, delicious beverage,” Penny says of the latte — a drink with a “smooth, well-rounded profile that is complemented by the floral and vanilla flavors of lavender.”
Mission accomplished. Happy spring, everyone.
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