Starbucks London Fog (review)

If you read this blog you probably know that tea is “hot”:  More and more people are drinking tea, learning about tea, and appreciating tea.  New chains such as Argo are capitalizing on this trend by offering various creative tea drinks as an alternative to latte-culture.

But Starbucks won’t be outdone, and has recently announced a new selection of custom tea drinks made from full leaf teas (previous Starbucks tea offerings were limited to green tea lattes and paper-bagged Tazo teas). Naturally I was curious about these new offerings, and decided to give one a try.

Incidentally, while the could be purchased at my local Starbucks (in downtown Chicago), there was nothing on the menu indicating that this was the case. I asked the barista when the new tea drinks would be available. She assured me that they were now available, but were not yet on the menu. I thought this odd, but decided to order the new “London Fog” beverage, which is described as  “. . .an intriguing blend of black tea, citrusy bergamot, French lavender, vanilla and freshly steamed milk.”

I sipped, I considered, and my review is below :

Presentation: Standard Starbucks sippy-cup. Please note that the drink is prepared with a silken teabag and that the teabag is in the drink when you buy it. The barista tucked the string/tag into the cup holder, which was fine, but also meant that I didn’t notice the teabag until I removed the lid in order to better inspect the drink. If you don’t want your tea drink to oversteep, be sure to remove the tea bag.

Flavor: Quite tasty and comforting, actually.  It didn’t bowl me over, but the mixture of Earl Grey, lavender and vanilla come together very nicely with the milk. The lavender was definately more of a background note (and more evident in the nose than on the palate) with the bergamot and vanilla dominating.

One nit: While I like foam on espresso-based drinks, for some reason I don’t care for it on tea drinks. Not sure why, but it just tastes rather strange to me. This isn’t Starbucks’ fault, just a matter of personal taste. You can always ask the barista to keep the foam off the latte.

Recommendation: A tasty tea-based alternative to coffee-latte drinks.  Tea-snobs may sneer, but for those who want a jazzed-up tea beverage or who want to break the coffee habit, the London Fog may be just the thing.

Disclosure: Two members of my immediate family are employed by Starbucks.

Tagged as: Earl Grey, london fog, starbucks, tea, Tea Drink Review, tea reviews