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January 20, 2005
Review: Starbucks' Chantico not very heavenly
Overall: **
So I had occasion to go to Starbucks' today and found the walls plastered with ads for their new chocolate drink "Chantico". Named after the Aztec goddess of home and hearth, this seems like someone took chocolate syrup (the generic kind), added whole milk to it and steamed it up. While it is better than Starbucks' hot chocolate, I can't find anything else nice to say about it.
"Imagine drinking a melted truffle and you're close to the Chantico chocolate experience," according to Michelle Gass who is Starbucks' senior vice president of category management (attribution: money.cnn.com). Let me just tell you that this thing tastes nothing like what a good truffle should taste like. The drink I got was only slightly thicker than their regular hot chocolate and was palate-scalding hot. As far as I can tell, the chief ingredient is cocoa butter (all the fat, with none of the taste of cacao) with grudgingly added cacoa powder to get some chocolate-y taste. If you need a quick pick-me-up and are averse to coffee, by all means go ahead and order this. It has enough sugar in it to keep you awake through several episodes of the Lawrence Welk show.
For those of you who care: A six-ounce cup of Chantico contains 390 calories, 20g of fat and 50g of carbs. Yikes! Save your calorie quota for something better and more sinful. However, if you are going for a regular Starbucks' hot chocolate and don't mind the rather excessive fat, try this instead.
If you want to know what other people think, someone's already done a survey of online opinion: www.blogaholics.ca
Posted by viren at January 20, 2005 04:04 PM
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Comments
I thought the chantico was heavenly!!!! It was really rich and chocolatey (even if I can't spell)
I would recomend everyone try one =)
Posted by: Virginia at April 19, 2005 10:58 AM