How are Starbucks Japan’s Baked Cheesecake Frappuccinos? We find out 【Taste test】

22:09 cherishe 0 Comments

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Starbucks Japan takes a break from fruit and goes for the cheese in its newest dessert drink.

We spent the last two weeks staring at (and drooling over) the promotional images for Starbucks Japan’s Baked Cheesecake Frappuccinos. On June 1, they finally went on sale, so we got up bright and early to visit our local Starbucks branch and try the new dessert beverage for ourselves.

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Starbucks has been on kind of fruit kick lately, with its last four limited-time Frappuccinos having been strawberry, cantaloupe, apricot, and sakura strawberry flavors. By comparison, the Baked Cheesecake Frappuccino doesn’t have quite the same colorful impact in the looks department, although the visuals still tell you it’s an unmistakably decadent drink.

▼ The tall size is priced at 610 yen (US$5.50)

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Topping the beverage is a generous swirl of whipped cream with a flavor evocative of the browned top of a baked cheesecake.

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Another selling point Starbucks has been pushing is the presence of crumbled-up pie crust-style graham biscuits, and that turned out to be far more than just empty marketing copy. The Baked Cheesecake Frappuccino is packed with tasty graham biscuits, enough so that we recommend eating them with a spoon instead of trying to suck them all up through the straw.

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In contrast to the pale yellow of the whipped cream, the Frappuccino itself is pure white. Having sampled the whipped cream topping and graham bits, we took a sip, and were greeted by a smooth, pleasing milkiness. Surprisingly, the flavor doesn’t have the sharp cheese notes we’d been bracing ourselves for. Sure, there’s a cream cheese-like taste to the beverage, but it’s not as prominent as in some actual cheesecakes.

▼ Our taste-tester/Japanese-language correspondent, Meg

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That said, there’s probably a limit to how much cheesiness is desirable in beverage form, and what’s here is definitely tasty, so we’ll be heading back for more before the Baked Cheesecake Frappuccino leaves Starbucks’ menu on July 1.

Follow Casey on Twitter, where his tweets are also a mix of milky and cheesy.