For some reason all the drinks I’ve loved and ordered over the years have ended up being discontinued. Like seeing a great deal at CostCo that you hold off on pulling the trigger. When you finally decide you want that CostCo deal, the item is gone. Or after you find, buy & enjoy a new food item a few times, they stop carrying it. That’s CostCo and there’s probably a future letter to the ‘Dead Letter Office’ addressed to them as well. For some reason, I expect this to happen more at CostCo because of their unique & seasonal buying practices.
Starbucks is more like McDonald’s. You can walk into a McDonald’s in Japan or Starbucks in Barcelona and order your favorite food or drinks. Although some institutions like KFC in Japan or Burger King in India have a culturally-adapted menu. You have expectations that most US-based companies will provide travelers with a taste of home. Like TGIF in downtown Yokohama serving burgers, fries, Diet Coke and unsweetened ice-tea – Thanks TGIF!
But I’ve hit an exasperated point where Starbucks has discontinued one too many of my favorites. Of course their coffee is always a great drink, a Venti Iced Latte or Grande Hot Latte still being available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the Latte Macchiato was discontinued several months after I discovered the delicious, stronger latte experience. They still serve a Caramel Macchiato that I can order without caramel but its not the same & more expensive.<\/p>\n<\/div> My next discontinued favorite was the Guava White Iced Tea. It was my go-to drink when I didn’t want a coffee. I’ve tried the Refreshers but they are too sweet so this tea drink was a perfect thirst quencher in either tea-only or a tea+lemonade form.<\/p>\n<\/div> Next I switched to the Guava Black Iced Tea or Guava Black Iced Tea w\/ Lemonade – a decent replacement for the white iced tea but now that’s discontinued. Lastly, the reason I’ve always thought I should have stock in Starbucks. My wife’s favorite Green Iced Tea – a Trenta Green Iced Tea Unsweetened was attached to every order for as long as I’ve been going to Starbucks – is now gone, discontinued. She’s broken-hearted and has no reason to leave a little earlier so she can pick one up on the way.<\/p>\n<\/div> So Starbucks, it’s been a great run but I’ll be relying on my Nespresso machine for my Iced Lattes ($1.00-$1.20\/drink). My wife will order ChinaMist and Tazo Green Tea from Amazon (<$0.50\/drink) and brew her own teas. We’ll miss the convenience of the Starbucks Mobile App & drive-thru ordering when on the road. But we will not miss the scavenger hunt of finding the last Starbucks serving our favorite discontinued drink. Dear Starbucks, Update #1: Yea! Starbucks (somewhat) came to their senses and brought back Iced Green Tea. My wife is happy to have her favorite, everyday Starbucks beverage back. I’m still waiting for a Iced Guava White or Black Tea to return. For some reason all the drinks I’ve loved and ordered over the years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dead-letter-office"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mindwander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/GoodbyeStarbucks350.png?fit=350%2C350&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindwander.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mindwander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/StarbucksIcedLatteMacchiato.jpg?resize=640%2C354\")
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The Passion Tango, Passionfruit and Peach teas are not viable substitutes for me.
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We’ll keep an eye out for the return of our favorites and perhaps even try some of the new drinks when out & about. But if your marketing team is trying to adapt the menu selections to draw new consumers. Remember Classic Coke and your long-time regulars like us that want their “usuals”. There should be room on the menu for both new and “classic” drinks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"