This Butterscotch Latte ($5.50, tall) was released at Starbucks in May 2021. It is described as being a ‘buttery-sweet symphony of brown sugar, toasted toffee and a cosy creaminess’ with ‘gently smouldering butterscotch sauce get[ting] together with [their] bold espresso, topped with a sprinkle of Turkish ground coffee’.
Consumed hot, the latte isn’t nearly as much delicious as its description suggests. The butterscotch sauce does indeed add a buttery-sweet dimension to the coffee, but the butter notes add an oily flavour — much like having added melted butter — rather than the warm sweetness of caramelised sugar and butter. The strong butter flavour aside, the latte is creamy but hardly worth going out of our way to try. Perhaps the absence of the sprinkle of Turkish ground coffee also did not help.
This Butterscotch Latte was purchased at Starbucks in Sydney, Australia in 2021.