This Starbucks Holiday Spice Flat White was one of four of their Christmas line up for 2018. Along with the Toasted White Chocolate Mocha, this was the one flavour I’m keen to try. This one is a flat white flavoured with ‘sweet, warm holiday spices and soft citrus undertones of tangerine flavour’. I’m not a fan of the spices used to flavour much of the lineup — ginger in particular — so it was the tangerine that drew me to this one.

Available only as a hot coffee, there’s a distinct aroma of spice with the citrus notes immediately evident on tasting. Pleasantly, the tangerine notes are soft and mellow with none of the sharp tangy notes usually expected of citrus that’s present in almost all orange flavoured chocolates. Overall, the coffee had a balanced sweetness that’s restrained well by the bitterness of the coffee. That said, the general flavour does recall a spiced Christmas fruitcake of which I’m not overly fond, so this is not a coffee for which I’d return.

This Starbucks Holiday Spice Flat White was purchased at Starbucks in Sydney, Australia in November 2018.