On a rainy and unusually dreary Saturday afternoon in Manhattan, I found myself among the throngs of tourists at the impossibly huge Starbucks Reserve in Chelsea. Why had I willingly entered this ultra-capitalist, multi-story coffee amusement park? To order the newest item on the menu: a coffee infused with olive oil.
Starbucks’ “Oleato” Line made his debut in Italy earlier this year, introducing sips of Partanna extra-virgin olive oil to a range of coffees, both chilly and warm. Overall, the experience with the Oleato line was… unappetizing. Novel Yorker wrote that it “tasted like a huge spoonful of olive oil in coffee,” coating the author’s mouth with a “slippery, oily residue.” Gruba Street found that a warm latte “tastes like the smell of toast,” also noting “a strange film that remains on the tongue after drinking the drink.”
Outgoing Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has credited the Oleato line as his driving force, a seminal highlight of his career. “In over 40 years, I can’t remember a time when I was more excited, more enthusiastic,” he said in a recent official statement. Speaking of which, Schultz is excited and enthusiastic he opposed trade union activitiesRecently, he has been spending his time singing Oleato’s praises in multinationality press conference and defending his unconstitutional conduct toward suspect Bernie Sanders.
Between the somewhat negative press on one side and Schultz’s glossy, oily PR language evoking the sunlit groves of Sicily on the other, I had to give it a try when I heard it debuted in the U.S. just a week ago. There was only one way to indulge that impulse, and that was to drive from Brooklyn to Chelsea in the pouring rain. (The employees at this very location hit from October to December last year, alleging unsanitary conditions — eventually management agreed to regularly tidy the ice machines.)
I tentatively approached the counter and ordered three available Oleato coffees: a warm latte, a chilly brew with chilly foam, and an iced cortado, each costing between $8 and $9 for the smallest size. After a cursory glance, I seemed to be the only person in my immediate vicinity who ordered coffee with olive oil.
For fear of being seen as unhappy and lonely, and for fear of passing out from the amount of caffeine in three coffees, I brought along a willing companion. This place also served espresso martinis topped with a chilly olive oil foam, we noted. Should we? It was Saturday, 2 p.m., we remembered. We held off.
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A little about olive oil
Golden Foam Cool Brew
We started with a chilly brew, topped with a foam soaked in olive oil. On the nose, as sommeliers like to say, it immediately smelled like a leafy salad—specifically, a salad drizzled with a very fatty vinaigrette. When the chilly foam hit my tongue, I was immediately hit with the mighty, earthy taste of Partanna, as if the foam was made entirely of it. I usually like the taste of olive oil, but I never craved drinking it. And I felt like I was drinking it, but I was left with the impression that the inside of my mouth had been drenched in olive oil.
Coffee with milk
With our stomachs full for more, we moved on to the warm latte, which featured oat milk that had been infused with olive oil and then brewed. Oddly enough, Starbucks didn’t choose to infuse other milks with olive oil in their lattes. I was most tempted by this option, since the warm latte is usually my favorite coffee. My friend astutely noted that the nutty flavor of the oat milk toned down the flavor of the olive oil, subtly complementing the drink rather than overpowering it, and I agreed. Not surprisingly, this turned out to be my favorite of the three, and the only one I actively wanted to drink more of.
Ice cream slices
The Cortado was the most confusing and least redeemable of the three. By the time I brought it to our table, it had already begun to separate into its component parts—namely, olive oil and espresso. The greenish oil began to rise and bubble to the top, leaving a centimeter of gooey liquid floating on the surface. Tasting it truly simulated what I imagined it would be like to drink a shot of olive oil and wash it down with a shot of pure espresso. 0/10
Would I order either of those coffees again? Maybe a warm latte, certainly not any other. At this point, I felt as if I had consumed many spoonfuls of olive oil (Schultz, for example, says he drinks a tablespoon a day, in keeping with Sicilian tradition). I began to feel vaguely nauseous, though it was demanding to separate the effects of the oil from the effects of the excess caffeine quickly entering my system. In any case, I didn’t feel great.
Will Oleato change the way people drink coffee? Probably not. I’d have a demanding time imagining it becoming a PSL-style favorite. Maybe it’ll become a “secret” menu item, and stores will stock carafes of extra-virgin olive oil in case someone wants to pour it. Undeterred by its internal chaos, Starbucks will apparently continue to release its gadget of the day, and then the next. It’ll be up to the fans to decide whether they want them.
