White Chocolate Mocha: there's a lot to unpack with this one

People sometimes ask me: "Hey! If you work 60+ hours a week, how do you manage to spend roughly six hours a day at a Starbucks located inside a strip mall?"  That, gentle reader, is a mystery, I admit---but I've had some pretty good times at that Starbucks and I can honestly say that the baristas now even tolerate my presence, although arguably somewhat begrudgingly.

Actually, the baristas at my S-bucks are great and one asked me to mention this fact as she made a sample of the white chocolate mocha for me to try. It probably doesn't require pointing out, but I'm a middle-aged guy who typically drinks plain espresso, lattes, and cold brew. I don't really go for sugary drinks, but I'm willing to sacrifice my personal preferences, my health, my self-respect, and whatever else it takes, to help this blog continue to get roughly 86 views per day.

As always, the ad execs make the drink sound amazing. They say something like "with subtly caramelized white chocolate sauce, [this drink] almost tastes like sitting in front of a roaring fire."

I get that the ad execs have to come up with compelling descriptions for their drinks, but I have to question the logic behind this one. What’s the connection between white chocolate sauce and sitting in front of a roaring fire?  Do people really associate those two things?  Answer: no, they don't. 

In fact, I’m pretty sure no one has ever been sitting by the fireplace and been like, “You know what this roaring fire is lacking? Some white chocolate sauce.”  

I feel like Starbucks is just phoning in the drink descriptions at this point.  

But back to the white mocha. Like I said, I don't typically go for sweet drinks and I had to force most of this one down. As far as chocolate goes, I love dark chocolate, think milk chocolate is pretty good, and I find white chocolate completely disgusting. I’m not even convinced white chocolate is actually chocolate, so I was already biased against this particular drink. Plus, I was a teenager in the `90s and back then I used to watch this daytime tabloid talk show, Jenny Jones, and she always had white guys on who would refer to themselves as "White Chocolate" in an overtly sexual manner. I’ve blocked a lot of it out, but I remember they’d say things like “Hey Girl! You want some white chocolate?”   

My recollection is that the women generally didn’t want white chocolate—at least not in the sense the guys had intended it---and I certainly don’t remember any of the women saying, “Hell yeah I want some white chocolate! It totally reminds me of sitting by a roaring fire!” Although if they had said that, I guess that drink description would suddenly make a lot more sense.

The drink actually tastes more of hot chocolate (with white chocolate) than an espresso-based drink, and it's topped with whipped cream. I'd say it's a coffee drink for people who don't really like the taste of coffee so much.  If you like drinking hot chocolate on a cold winter's night as you sit by a roaring fire listening to the soothing sounds of Freddie Mercury (who I'm pretty sure died of AIDS, unfortunately), then you'll probably love this beverage. 

(I hope someone at Starbucks sees this post and realizes they could have this kind of talent writing their drink descriptions.)

If, on the other hand, you're like me and associate white chocolate with overtly sexual white guys from the Jenny Jones show back in 1996, then you should pass.

Verdict: very sweet, more like a hot chocolate; definitely does not taste like sitting in front of a roaring fire.

Score: Three Stars and three Bucks out of ten.