Starbucks revamps pastry menu

You might have noticed a change in the pastry case at your local Starbucks over the past few weeks. In an effort to cut costs while increasing overall quality, Starbucks has completely changed the way that they do their pastries. Previously, Starbucks used a variety of regional bakeries to stock their stores. This meant that you could find different types of pastries in different areas, according to what was popular there, and that the ingredients that went into the items varied widely.

Starting today, Starbucks is using fewer bakeries, each of which will produce and ship more items. This consolidation also allowed Starbucks to tinker with its recipes and refocus on slightly healthier options with all natural ingredients. They cut out corn syrup from their Marshmallow Dream Bars, eliminated the artificial flavorings from berry muffins and real egg whites are making an appearance in a heart-healthy breakfast sandwich. Starbucks says that its new options have “15 percent fewer calories, 5 percent less fat and 8 percent less saturated fat” than previous items.

Time Out Chicago has done a taste test of the newest items on the menu, if you want to see how they stack up. Not all of these items may be available in your region, but some are nationwide.

Zhena’s Gypsy Tea PINK Acaiberry Green Tea

Zhena’s Gypsy Tea PINK Acaiberry Green Tea is part of the PINK Tea for Women’s Health line from Zhena’s Gypsy. The line includes teas made from superfruit berries, including cherries, pomegranate, cranberries and cacao berries, that are high in antioxidants and other beneficial compounds. Additionally, a portion of the proceeds from the sales of tea in this line go towards The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

The Acaiberry tea reminded me a lot of the Tazo Passion tea, except that the flavor of the green tea base actually came through the fruitiness slightly. It gave the tea a very clean, refreshing feel. Overall, the flavor was very fruity, somewhere between a strawberry, a kiwi and a grape – which boils down to it having an acai berry  flavor, which is quite hard to pin down if you’ve never had it before. A great summertime tea, this one, like the Strawberry Kiwi Tea I tried not too long ago, also makes good iced tea. Unlike the Strawberry, which was excellent plain and sweetened, I would prefer this one completely unsweeted for iced tea so that the subtle flavors of the fruit can come out.

Zhena’s Gypsy Tea Strawberry Kiwi Green Tea, reviewed

When I opened up the tin containing the tea bags, I was hit with a familiar smell. Zhena’s Gypsy Tea Strawberry Kiwi Green Tea smells a lot like strawberry Jolly Ranchers – bright and sweet with a floral, strawberry scent – and a lot like it would make a wonderful pitcher of iced tea. So, I made iced tea and it did not let me down. The tea, although it smells like Jolly Ranchers, does not taste candy-like in the least. It does keep the floral strawberry notes, but they are much mellower and more subtle in the brewed tea. The kiwi came through in a very slight tang in the finish.This tea was excellent sweetened, as both honey and sugar played up the natural sweetness of the tea’s ingredients.

It’s a green tea and, as with many green teas, I found that it lost a bit of its softer, floral flavors when it was too diluted with water/ice. So, if you plan to make iced tea with it as I did, it’s worth planning ahead to give the full-strength tea time to chill overnight before serving, so that you will get the full effect of this sweet, summery tea on a hot day.

Home Coffee Dispenser

The best coffee is generally made from recently roasted beans that have been ground just before being brewed. This maximizes the amount of oil in the coffee beans and gives the finished coffee the richest flavor. But we can’t always have our coffee this way. Sometimes a batch of beans sits around on the counter for a while before we get around to drinking it. Sometimes, we end up buying preground because there was a new flavor/brand available or we don’t have a bean grinder at our disposal. Whatever the reason, it is still possible to preserve the freshness of the beans by keeping them in an airtight container. The Home Coffee Dispenser is an airtight container that should keep beans – especially preground coffee that is prone to drying out – much fresher than other containers. Once the chamber is filled up,  you can dispense coffee a tablespoon at a time into your coffee maker (or even your espresso machine) without opening up the whole thing and exposing all the beans to more air. It holds up to half a pound of coffee.

The Dispenser is especially useful for an occasional coffee drinker, who likes to keep some coffee around but doesn’t make it much, since it not only keeps things fresh, but it makes it much easier to measure it out when you finally get around to using it.

Starbucks Brazil Ipanema Bourbon coffee, reviewed

I’ve been disappointed by a lot of the light roast coffees I’ve had in recent weeks. Many have been really lacking in the flavor department. I can safely say that Starbucks’ Brazil Ipanema Bourbon coffee was not one of these. The light roast coffee – categorized as a mild by Starbucks – is packed with different flavors. It starts off really clean, with a subtle hazelnut taste. There are also some sweet and vaguely fruity notes, and a finish that is a little bit darker, with a hint cocoa or chocolate. It is not woodsy or overly roasty (i.e. burnt) tasting at all. It’s low acidity and is smooth and easy to drink from start to finish. This is a really nice coffee overall and should be popular with all kinds of coffee drinkers.

Incidentally, the coffee is not not pronounced “BOUR-bon” like the liquor. Starbucks says, “Bourbon” (pronounced bur-BONE) refers to the specific variety of coffee plant from which these beans come. Arabica Bourbon is one of the world’s oldest and rarest species of coffee. The Bourbon tree is carefully nurtured to maturity, its prized cherries hand selected to ensure ripeness and peak flavor.