By Sophia Doan and Donya Vandersteen
Welcome to the last issue of Starbabes!
Like most teenage girls, we adore Starbucks. Every last penny we have is spent on the large variety of drinks they have to offer whether it be an ice-cold refresher, sugary frappuccino, or a perfectly brewed coffee. Scrolling through Tik Tok or Instagram Reels, we see a lot of crazy drink combinations that we’ve always been hesitant to try. We decided to take the risk and try all of the wild drinks so you don’t have to!
Very Berry Passion Tea
How much it cost: $7.50
How to order: grande strawberry acai refresher no water, substitute passion tango tea, with vanilla sweet cream cold foam
Sophia’s ranking: 8.5/10
Donya’s ranking: 7/10
Due to a supply shortage causing us to alter our initial request, this drink was a last minute creation that turned out to be quite delicious! A stunning dark pink color, this drink surpassed our expectations. The passion tango tea–substituting for the usual water or lemonade–makes for a less-sweet version of the original strawberry acai refresher, but the vanilla sweet cream cold foam reintroduces a new sweet flavor that we instantly loved. The consistency that the cold foam added once it was mixed gave the drink a more creamy texture that we quickly grew fond of. Overall, the drink pleasantly surprised us and we 100% recommend this delicious combination for a warm summer day or tanning on the beach!
Caramel Avalanche
How much it cost: $8.80
How to order: grande cold brew with salted caramel cold foam, caramel drizzle and 4 pumps of white mocha
Sophia’s ranking: 6/10
Donya’s ranking: 8/10
A sweeter alternative to a traditional cold brew, the Caramel Avalanche contains passionate notes of caramel, in addition to the typical coffee flavor. While we usually opt for drinks that lead people to tell us we’re going to get diabetes, this drink was one of our less sweet options! Compared to our other coffee concoctions that we’ve tried in previous issues of Starbabes, this drink lacked the wow factor that would have set it unique to the others. If we were to order it again, we’d recommend adding in a chocolate drizzle or hazelnut syrup to increase the diversity of the flavors flowing within the drink!
Grandma’s Soap (In a good way)
How much it cost: $6.45 (for venti which is what he gave to us)
How to order: venti mango dragon fruit refresher with no water and heavy cream
Sophia’s ranking: 5/10
Donya’s ranking: 5/10 “I kinda like it” (proceeds to throw away the whole drink 3 minutes later)
When we asked the (very confused) Starbucks barista to make a unique drink of his choice, he whipped up a thicker version of the mango dragon fruit. Although we have previously compared the flavor of the typical mango dragon fruit refresher to soap, we found that the addition of heavy cream improved its overall flavor. Reminding us of a sweet mango yogurt, with its creamy consistency and fruity flavor, this drink was better than we anticipated, but was definitely not one of our favorites. If you are a mango dragon fruit fanatic, we definitely recommend trying this version of the refresher!