30 days of Starbucks
Morgan Spurlock did it in Super Size Me at McDonalds. Could you do the same thing at Starbucks? Thanks to Cockeyed, I found the blog of a woman who intended to try and eat all her food at Starbucks for 30 days. Unlike Spurlock, who started out with a point to prove and a specific roadmap on how to achieve his goal, Kristen says she just thought it would be an interesting experiment and wasn’t trying to prove a point.
The coffee shop does carry all kinds of food options these days, from hot breakfast sandwiches and oatmeal, to pastries, regular sandwiches and salads. Kristen didn’t quite decide to see her project through to the end (yet), but it’s obviously possible based just on their offerings, and from the first week of the experiment it’s easy to see that is possible to be reasonably healthy while doing so, although it’s not an inexpensive prospect.
Dunkin Donuts opens “green” store
This week, Dunkin’ Donuts opened their first “green” store in St. Petersburg, Florida. The store is LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified and has: energy-efficient insulated concrete foam walls, energy-efficient lighting, and water-efficient plumbing fixtures. Even more interesting is the store’s “earthworm casting facility,” where earthworms will eat the waste produced by the store.
This may be a step in the right direction, but Dunkin’ has a long way to go considering that most of its stores use styrofoam cups and they seem to double-cup their drinks more often than some other coffee shops. To-go coffee cups and paper sleeves passed out by the hundreds at other coffee shops are not be completely eco-friendly, either, considering that not many make it back to the recycling bin. But in fairness, a lot of the paper goods used at coffee shops do start out with some percentage of post-consumer recycled paper, and that is a much bigger step towards being eco-friendly than changing the energy needs of one store.
Starbucks Toasted Marshmallow Mocha, reviewed
I spotted a new addition to the Starbucks syrup menu when I was visiting a licensed store at a local Barnes and Noble: Toasted Marshmallow. The syrup is included in drinks where it is the featured flavor on its own – i.e. Toasted Marshmallow Latte – and as an add-on to mocha drinks. I’m a sucker for s’mores and couldn’t want to taste it.
After trying both a hot Toasted Marshmallow Mocha and a Toasted Marshmallow Mocha Frappuccino, I’d say that the syrup is a bullseye for the flavor of real toasted marshmallows. It has a toffee flavor to it, and an aftertaste that is tastes like very caramelized sugar, verging on slightly burnt – just like a toasted marshmallow or a creme brulee. I think that this was more satisfying as a hot drink than as a cold one, but wasn’t bad either way. The syrup is not too sweet, thanks to the toasted finish, and I’d try adding a couple of pumps to a vanilla latte to try and come up with a creme brulee flavored drink next time.
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