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What Does Starbucks' Black Cat Frappuccino Taste Like?
I tried the new Halloween beverage, and here's my honest opinion.
Black cat is a classic Halloween costume — right up there with witch, ghost, vampire and the like. But it is for sure less common as a costume for your coffee-shop drink.
This year, though, Starbucks is entering the trick-or-treat season with a new limited-time beverage that, basically, dresses up your drink in feline form. The Black Cat Frappuccino blended beverage arrives in “select” U.S. Starbucks locations on Thursday, Oct. 22. I got an advance taste.
What is Starbucks’ new Black Cat Frappuccino blended beverage?
Starbucks describes the icy beverage as a “purr-fect Halloween treat, combining a rich cocoa flavor with a Creme Frappuccino beverage to create decadent brownie-like notes, topped with whipped cream and chocolatey cat ears.”
The drink is available in grande size only. You can watch one being made here. (“Meow,” whispers the voiceover. “So spooky.”)
My honest review of Starbucks' Black Cat Frappuccino:
It basically tastes like a Brooklyn blackout cake in liquid form — very sweet and rich.
The first thing I noticed about the treat was the cute cat ears, which the barista delicately placed atop the beverage and then smushed into the whipped cream with the plastic cup cap.
The second was the color. It was a deep, dark brown: the hue of the darkest sort of chocolate cake.
I found the drink tasty, overall. The flavor was a sort of premade-frosting-like, which, for me, has a nostalgic appeal. The chocolatey ears, which I saved for the end, were a fun candy nod to the holiday. I enjoyed the beverage, though perhaps more at the beginning, when the taste was novel, than at the end, when I started to feel a bit over-satiated.
Would I order it again? Hmm, maybe. But as a dessert, and I probably wouldn’t feel compelled to consume the whole thing.
What do other people think of Starbucks' Black Cat Frappuccino blended beverage?
While some enjoyed it, as I did, plenty of commenters on Reddit — baristas and the like, who have also had a chance to taste it in advance of its official debut — are not fans.
“Hated it. But the ears with whip cream tastes good,” wrote one commenter.
“Too rich,” said another.
One person described it as “heinous.” Two complained that it tasted “fake.”
Catty, perhaps, but the drink also has its fans.
“I loved it!” exclaimed one.
“It’s actually good,” another commented.
There was also a consensus forming around a best-in-moderation take: “Yummy but in small quantities,” as one commenter put it.
I agree.
Anything else for chocolate fans at Starbucks this season?
Yes. Also on Oct. 22, the coffee chain is debuting a “large,” “shareable,” “indulgent,” “soft” and “chewy” cookie, made with “decadent dark chocolate cookie dough” and featuring “caramel fudge pieces and chunks of caramelized white chocolate.”
Called the Venti Black Night Cookie, the treat will, like the Black Cat Frappuccino, be available only for a limited time at participating U.S. Starbucks locations.
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