What Is Behind the Belgian Coffee Chocolate Sauce Complaints?

Starbucks China launched three New Year drinks built on 57% Belgian-origin dark chocolate and oat milk: the Belgian Dark Chocolate Latte, a dark chocolate black tea latte with no coffee, and a coconut white chocolate latte. Baristas say the chocolate sauce is thick, clumps and hardens in winter, and resists the metal squeeze pump, making back-to-back cups physically taxing and prone to dripping.

Coffee and chocolate pair well because the slight bitterness of coffee and the sweetness of chocolate reinforce each other, which is why chocolate drinks return each year under names like Belgian coffee. Staff frustration has grown with rumors that the series may move from a seasonal limited edition to a permanent menu item, keeping the difficult sauce in daily rotation.

Starbucks China launched three new products for the New Year: Belgian Dark Chocolate Latte, Belgian Dark Chocolate Black Tea Latte, and Coconut White Chocolate Latte, featuring a combination of 57% Belgian-origin dark chocolate and oat milk, attracting attention from many chocolate lovers. However, behind the hot sales of the new products, baristas are complaining on social media: the chocolate sauce used this time is unusually thick, prone to clumping and hardening in winter, and extremely difficult to operate with the metal squeeze pump. Making consecutive cups is like lifting weights at the gym, and it easily drips and stains the bar counter and clothing. What's even more frustrating for the workers is that there are rumors that this series may shift from a seasonal limited edition to a permanent offering.

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Chocolate and coffee are arguably the two most irresistible temptations for modern people. The former is so sweet it's hard to stop, while the latter is rich and mellow on the palate. Enjoyed separately, both can bring pleasure and stimulation to the taste buds and brain; if the two are combined, not only do they complement each other in aroma and taste, but the slight bitterness of coffee and the sweetness of chocolate also enhance each other, creating a unique layering of flavors.

On New Year's Eve, Starbucks China launched three annual new products all at once: Belgian Dark Chocolate Latte, Belgian Dark Chocolate Black Tea Latte, and Coconut White Chocolate Latte, all by default paired with oat milk, with the Dark Chocolate Black Tea Latte containing no coffee. In the promotional ads, Starbucks particularly emphasized that this series uses 57% Belgian-origin dark chocolate, which when combined with coffee presents a slightly bitter and slightly sweet flavor.

Although Starbucks is not the first time to make a fuss about dark chocolate, and versions of Belgian chocolate paired with coffee have been launched before, for sweet tooths who love both milk coffee and chocolate, seeing those tempting text descriptions and screens full of silky, rich imagery still instantly breaks down their resistance. Sure enough, these new products once again attracted a large crowd of "chocolate heads" to watch, and review posts about the Dark Chocolate Latte kept flooding the screen.

As the Belgian Dark Chocolate series sold well, in recent days the baristas responsible for making the drinks have been complaining one after another on social media, all pointing at the flavor sauce used in the new products—because it is just too, too hard to press.

It is understood that the main flavors of the several drinks Starbucks launched this time come respectively from Belgian dark chocolate sauce and another white chocolate sauce. But unlike the syrup pump bottles used in the past, both chocolate sauces are packed in dedicated white buckets and used with matching metal squeeze pumps. Each press dispenses a fixed 7.5 ml, so no weighing is needed during preparation; simply press the corresponding number of times according to the cup size.

From the baristas' feedback, the chocolate sauce used this time is much thicker than before, especially prone to clumping and hardening in winter, and combined with the metal squeeze pump, pressing is particularly laborious. Every operation requires all your strength, and some girls with less strength even have to jump to borrow momentum. If it comes to making consecutive cups, it is simply like "lifting iron" in the gym. In their words: "I feel like I'm going to train into a金刚Barbie," "If I keep pressing like this, I'll get tenosynovitis at a young age."

What gives the workers the biggest headache is that this metal pump head is not only laborious to press, but after each use the black sauce also drips down from the piston opening in strings, often catching people off guard and easily smearing all over the bar counter. After wiping with a rag, you wipe with paper towels; if you're not careful, even your white clothes and white pants will suffer.

Not only that, after closing every day you still have to spend a lot of time disassembling and washing this dark chocolate sauce bucket, no wonder so many baristas come out to complain: "I really hate it."

But in the baristas' view, if the dark chocolate were only launched as a seasonal limited edition, then they could at least endure until it is taken off the menu. But according to the latest "grapevine" news, Starbucks plans to officially make this series a permanent offering, and the workers are collapsing as soon as they hear it!!!

Image source: internet screenshot

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.