‘Tis the Season for Coffee

The days are getting shorter while the city is bursting with lights and colourful decorations on every street, on mall and house windows and everyone seemed to be more cheerful and positive these days. The Christmas spirit is alive once again and the anticipation for merrymaking, reunions and good food is growing intensely as December is fast approaching.

For coffee lovers, the best time to enjoy a cup of brewed coffee is during cold Christmas twilights while the breeze is still chilly, the roads are not yet jammed with vehicles and the sky is just turning orange from the rising sun. But the monsoon breeze is not only meant for just a brewed coffee because it also signals the return of the Starbucks Christmas beverages, an annual tradition anticipated by coffee lovers from around the world.

Triple Welcome Treat

Kicking off the Holiday Season is two of Starbucks signature Christmas frappucinos, Peppermint Mocha are Toffee Nut Latte. The first, being a personal favourite few years back before I discovered the black Komodo Dragon blend and moved to double espresso after that, is a relaxing blend of chocolate, bold espresso and steamed milk with a dash of peppermint to give it that soothing slide in the throat in every sip. The enjoyment of drinking Peppermint Mocha lies in savouring the minty aroma of this drink which will remind you of pine trees, Midnight masses with friends and Christmas candy cane. If nuts are your thing, then the Toffee Nut Latte is perfect for you, a sweet concoction of sweet toffee, toasted nuts, smooth espresso and steamed milk served with whipped cream and toffee sprinkles.

Forget about the diet this Season because Starbucks newest offering, the Praline Mocha is all about diet-wrecking chocolate drink. This valentine sweet favourite is blended with smooth espresso, creamy steamed milk and more dark chocolates with a hint of hazelnut, topped with whipped cream and added with some more chocolate drizzles. But don’t worry because the taste would not tell you its bad figure. The Praline Mocha is especially made for the Filipinos because of they genuine love for chocolates.

For people like me who prefer their classic black, Starbucks brings back its Christmas Blend, a bold spicy blend of Latin America, Asia-Pacific and rare, aged Indonesian roasted beans. During the launching, Starbucks coffee expert Joyce taught us the way to fully enjoy our black coffee. First inhale the rich, bold aroma of your coffee by enclosing the lids with both your hands, capturing the biting smell of rich bold syrupy flavour of your coffee. Then slurp! Yes, not just sip, but slurp, is the secret of enjoying your black, savouring the flavour as it sticks at the back and middle of your tongue. Just make sure your coffee is not too hot to burn your tongue.

A perfect match for their Christmas Blend is Starbucks Holiday desserts. The Gingerbread Boys, handcrafted gingerbread cookies and the Holiday Slice Loaf Cake, a sweet and spicy ginger loaf with sweet cream cheese of butter-cream icing and topped with candied ginger will complement the spicy taste of you coffee as well as the Red Berry Bliss Bar with its gingery orange flavour. For those who cannot get enough of their Toffee Nut Latte and Peppermint Mocha, Starbucks have their dessert version of these two drinks, the Toffee Nut muffin and the Peppermint Brownie, a dark chocolate brownie made with peppermint and sweet cream cheese, which proved to be as refreshing as the drink itself. You can also try their Apple Strudel made of cinnamon, apples and raisins as well as their shortbread cookies to go with your Starbucks favourites.

Pass the Cheer and the Planner

For 2007, Starbuck’s Christmas theme is Pass the Cheer in celebration of the joy that Christmas brings to friends and families. According to Ding Bustillos, Starbucks Marketing Manager, they want to grow the spirit of the Holidays to their customers and pass it to everyone they see on the streets, in their workplaces and their homes.

A particular way of doing it is Starbucks 4-year tradition of releasing their limited edition planners which is mostly the main reason why people now are lining up to Starbucks’ stores. This year’s planner according to Bustillos has the theme My Starbucks, based from the feelings that customers associate to their stores. For Bustillos, sitting at her favourite couch in the second floor of Starbucks’ Valero feeds her “voyeuristic tendencies” of watching people going in and out of the store. She says doing this relaxes her and that is the feeling that she associated with her Starbucks’ store. For this year’s planner however, Starbucks wants to bring back the feeling of a traditional planner using a pencil rather than pen. Bustillos added that they want to encourage everyone to continue writing journals. They also added specialized cards for all occasions.

But the Starbucks’ planner is more than just the latest fad for the Holiday Season because for each planner redeemed, a certain day care center is receiving financial assistance, with Starbucks’ Project Sparkhope. Started in 2004 in line with the launching of the planner, Starbucks partnered with United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) to rehabilitate day care centres from all over the country. With Project Sparkhope, teachers, caregivers and even parents were also trained of the Early Childhood Care and Development fro them to be more effective child developers.

“In the end it’s all about passing the cheer to unfortunate children who don’t have access to education. Hopefully with more planners redeemed this year we wont only be present in 12 barangays , we would like to establish one barangay adopted in every community,” said Bustillos. So far, Starbucks have already started adopting schools in Mindanao particularly in Masbate where Bustillos realized how remote some areas are in the Philippines and how important is education for these children.

Focusing on education, Starbucks also launched another project is the book donation where they set a goal of 10,000 books from publications. The company or publication that can render the most number of books will be receive special award and becomes Starbucks partner for literacy.

Christmas is for Giving

Christmas would not be complete without giving gifts. No matter how small or how expensive a gift maybe, whether you got it from the mall or did it on your own, the bliss that comes with seeing the joy in the faces your loved ones while they are opening your gifts amounts to nothing in this world. As much as possible, we would like personalized our gifts selecting items according to the preferences of the person we’re giving it to. Choosing gits can be tasking especially when we are in the rush.

Starbucks takes this burden off their customers by releasing their first ever Christmas brochure. According to Bustillos, the catalogue was borne out of their customer’s requests. In the catalogue is a collection of Starbucks merchandise, coffee varieties and baked products to give out as Christmas presents.

Customers can choose from Starbucks’ signature Christmas mugs and tumblers that comes in different sets, designs and sizes. They also included coffee press in 3, 4 and 8 cup sizes for those who can’t have enough of their brewed coffee. The Six for the Season Gift Pack, a sampler of Starbucks blends including Christmas Blend, Kenya, House Blend, Sumatra, Caffe Verona and Guatamela Antigua would be the best present for certified coffee addicts, but for those who wants to preserve the taste of Christmas all year round, you can always take home a 250g pack of the Christmas Blend.

Food has always been a part of Christmas and for Starbucks, you can never go wrong with sending some sweet delights to your love ones. Start with their Snowflakes, a light vanilla sponge cake layers with lemon curls, crushed walnuts and meringue dusted with coconuts flakes or sinful Chocolate Dome Cake complete with white chocolate and chocolate mousse and bits of Belgian chocolate cakes. The little ones will surely enjoy munching on the Gingerbread Boys cookies which comes in packs of 4 and shortbread cookies.

Whatever your idea of a perfect Christmas is, it’s still best enjoying with the company of your loved ones, family, friends, lovers or co-workers. And with a cup of coffee in hand, Christmas would certainly be warmer.