Starbucks Japan has a new limited-edition Frappuccino for summer, but does it taste any good?
Do not disturb as our taste buds have checked out for the holidays.
Starbucks has been celebrating the upcoming early summer season in Japan with a festival of strawberries covering not just one but two Frappuccinos, as well as a convenience store exclusive and a simple milk-based drink. Now, the chain is diving into its second stage of summer with mango as the star fruit, and the first beverage coming our way is the Oriental Mango & Tea Frappuccino.
▼ The new drink is designed to whisk us away to the side of a pool at an Asian resort.
With the body containing a mix of jasmine tea and soy milk, the bottom of the cup is filled with a generous mound of mango pulp. Finished with whipped cream and a mango sauce topping, the sunny hues really give this a summery vibe, and the taste is incredibly delicious.
Thanks to the jasmine tea, it has a refreshing flavour that makes you want to gulp it down and the aroma and richness of the soy milk pairs perfectly well with it, making this an irresistibly good beverage.
▼ The mango pulp is juicy and sweet, with just a hint of sourness that makes you want to keep on drinking it.
The second new mango offering, released at the same time as the new Frappuccino on 28 May, is the Chillax Soda Mango.
This new addition to the recently released Chillax Soda range combines a mix of soda and mango pulp with a green citrus-flavoured syrup containing aromatic ingredients such as lemon, lime, grapefruit, and mint. Starbucks baristas recommend switching out the soda for black tea or passion fruit tea to enhance the flavours at no extra cost, so we opted for the latter, which turned out to be a very good choice.
The tartness of the passion fruit was a great pairing for the sweetness of the mango, making it so easy to drink we gulped it down in no time. Without the fizziness of soda getting in the way, the mango pulp was allowed to shine, giving us a refreshing chaser for the Frappuccino and its rich mound of cream.
The ability to play around with customisations gives us more ways to enjoy the delicious new beverages, but they'll only be available until 8 July, with the Oriental Mango & Tea Frappuccino priced from 707 yen (US$4.91) and the Chillax Soda Mango priced from 579 yen.
Photos ©SoraNews24
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