Starbucks Olive Oil Coffee Launches for Three Days! Italian Youth Can't Take It Anymore!

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Starbucks Unveils Olive Oil Coffee Series

On February 22nd, Starbucks pulled back the curtain on what it clearly considered its next big thing — a coffee product that nobody in the industry, and apparently not even the Sicilians themselves, had ever dared to imagine: the "Oleato" series (literally, "with oil") — olive oil coffee.

The launch lineup included an olive oil latte, an olive oil shaken espresso, and an olive oil foam cold brew, with the Milan Roastery additionally serving an olive oil deconstructed coffee and an olive oil coffee martini.

The name alone is enough to make you wince. As for the inspiration, interim CEO Howard Schultz said it came from a trip to Sicily the previous year, where he noticed the local habit of taking olive oil daily. He began drinking olive oil alongside his own daily coffee, decided the two belonged together, and pushed Starbucks to combine them. The three standard beverages are priced between $4.8 and $6.9 — roughly 33 to 47 RMB.

The series is built on Partanna extra virgin olive oil, the highest grade in the olive oil classification. And because the concept is rooted in a Sicilian habit, Italy was the natural place to debut it. In the three days since launch, however, Italian netizens have been merciless — the near-universal verdict: it's simply too greasy!

Extra Virgin Olive Oil Characteristics

Sicilians point out that olives grown for oil are typically bitter and astringent, unfit for eating straight — but those are exactly the fruit needed for oil production. The process involves adding a small amount of water to the olives, crushing them into a paste at temperatures not exceeding 27 degrees Celsius, then spinning the paste through a centrifuge to separate the water from the extra virgin olive oil. The result is oil with a paradoxical character: it doesn't feel greasy on the palate, yet it is packed with antioxidants, carries a slight bitterness, and leaves a peppery sting in the throat after swallowing — the sharper the sting, the higher the antioxidant content.

Extra virgin olive oil contains no cholesterol and is rich in monounsaturated fats, which is why it is credited with helping to prevent cerebrovascular disease. Across Europe, some families even give children and the elderly a spoonful before breakfast to settle the stomach.

Consumer Reception and Reviews

"But this new Starbucks product is really too greasy!" wrote one netizen — and the criticism has a technical explanation. Two of the three core drinks are served cold, and when ice chills the oil, it congeals on the palate rather than blending through. The mouthfeel is nothing like swallowing olive oil neat; it reads as cloying and heavy.

The olive oil shaken espresso is the clearest illustration of the problem. It combines a generous amount of ice, olive oil, and hazelnut syrup in a shaker, with plant-based milk added before serving. The ice acts as a physical barrier, so the olive oil never truly emulsifies with the espresso — oil stays oil, coffee stays coffee, and the syrup sits conspicuously on top of both. The drink has distinct layers, but the layers don't get along.

The olive oil foam cold brew fares considerably better. Because the olive oil is folded into the foam of a cold brew coffee, it has room to integrate with the cream during preparation, which tames the greasiness. Cold brew's higher concentration also stands up to the flavor, though the distinctive aroma of the olive oil itself still pushes through quite noticeably.

That leaves the one hot drink, the olive oil latte. Here the olive oil is added while the milk is being frothed, giving it a chance to emulsify properly, and the oil flavor is correspondingly the least noticeable of the lineup.

Even accounting for the professional-style breakdowns above, most casual reviews landed on the same note: too oily. Italian drinkers in particular found the texture strange and discordant.

Some local consumers, when interviewed by the media, were blunter still. "This way of drinking coffee is a strange idea," one said — in her view, the product appeals far more to foreigners than to Italians.

Facing days of this feedback, Carlo Marchelli, deputy manager of the Starbucks Milan Roastery, offered a defense: the goal was to create "an alchemy, a multi-sensory experience," marrying two traditionally opposing Italian rituals — sipping olive oil before a meal to warm the stomach, and sipping coffee afterward to aid digestion.

Image source: Internet

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Cold Brew, Done Right: Beans Built for Low Temperatures

Since the olive oil foam cold brew was the one Oleato drink that actually worked, it's worth knowing how to make a genuinely good cold brew at home. Cold brewing amplifies floral and fruity notes while muting woody and roasted flavors, so lightly-to-medium roasted beans are the best canvas. FrontStreet Coffee's top pick is the Strawberry Candy Geisha blend, which marries Panama's most representative Geisha variety with honey-processed Costa Rican coffee — one contributing delicate rose and orange, the other raisin, dried blueberry, and strawberry-candy sweetness. As cold brew it is tangy, juicy, and vibrantly aromatic, and if you let it ferment and settle a little, it takes on an almost wine-like character.

If florals are what you chase, the FrontStreet Natural Guizi (from coffee's birthplace, Ethiopia) is the one to buy: natural processing lets the beans absorb abundant sweetness from their fruit pulp, and in cold brew it yields magnolia, creamy strawberry, dried mango, guava, and black tea notes. For a fuller, juice-like cup, FrontStreet Kenya Cherry Tomato — grown at 1,550–1,750 meters in Thika on SL28 and SL34, with a 72-hour double-washed fermentation — expresses cherry tomato, snow pear, black plum, and dried dark plum with astonishing clarity over ice, with a clean, lingering finish and a hint of yellow sugar and green tea.

On a budget, consider FrontStreet Washed Yirgacheffe Guodingding — bright, sweet-tart berry and honey notes with excellent value — or blend it smarter: many love the passion fruit, grape, apricot, and dried-fruit complexity of FrontStreet Colombia Sidra but find it pricey, so blending one part Sidra with two parts FrontStreet Costa Rica Tarrazu keeps the floral-fruity lift and crisp citrus acidity while stretching the value considerably.