Those were the best moments, they were flashes of time (of course, a flash is the sound coming from your toilet bowl after drinking one of the damn things). That’s right, Oleato, the Starbucks olive oil coffee drink that no one liked and everyone pooped on is no more, as the brand will be removing it from the menu early next month.
Oleato was tense from the start. As reported CNNthis drink was made the way many ill-advised coffee companies have done in the past: after a trip to Italy. This time, it was then-CEO Howard Schultz who visited an olive oil plantation, where the producer “introduced him to the practice of drinking a tablespoon of olive oil every day.” Then, after extensive (read: no) consumer research – and part-ownership of Partanna, the exclusive brand of olive oil that Starbucks uses – Oleato was born.
The drink first debuted in Italy in overdue 2023 and arrived in North America in early 2024, with CNN calling its launch “bombastic.” “It’s more of a platform than a flavor or product.” said former Starbucks chief marketing officer Brady Brewer at the time. Schultz stated that it was “one of his most famed designs” and once even said that “people will add a tablespoon of Partanna extra virgin olive oil to their drink. I’m sure of it.”
[Narrator voice] NO.
Now, less than a year after launching in the U.S. and Canada, Starbucks’ Oleato beverage line is gone. It’s part of the brand’s menu overhaul, which modern CEO and commuter Brian Niccol called “too complicated.” And while a conflict with the company’s retired CEO is the quickest way to bring down Laxman, a source tells CNN that the decision to discontinue the drink was made before Niccol’s arrival.
So we must say goodbye, say adios, au revoir, arrivaderci (or in a sense oliwaoilderci) to Oleato, a drink that no one but Howard Schultz wanted and that cannot be missed, being flushed down the sewers of history and into the cesspool of memory. If we want coffee to make us poop, we have to do it the old-fashioned way. Drinking a lot of espresso. So much espresso.
