Starbucks Frappuccino

Product Type:Coffee Drinks; Container: 9.5 oz Glass
BevNET Review: Strong vanilla flavor -- and a heavy hand with the ace-K and Splenda -- turn the coffee taste in this product into an afterthought. With a thin-bodied liquid and a wide-mouthed bottle, however, it's easily gulpable before one can miss the loss of the coffee. The 100-calorie per serving bottle at least helps defang one of our big problems with the "Frap" -- that it's easy to take down 200 calories in a couple of sips, sometimes even before you have a chance to decide if you like it or not -- and the milk and sugar that are in the mix help to mask the artificial sweetener taste very well, with just the slightest hint of unnatural bitterness noticeable at the very finish. Playing up the coffee taste a bit more might mask that, as well. But the big problem here is that it's still about on par with a Coke, calorie-per-ounce wise. Which doesn't speak much for a low-cal product. Packaging retains it's Frappy snappiness, but we'd like to see the "light" tag made a little bit bigger for distinctiveness on the shelf. Overall, though, you'd hardly notice the reduction in calories from the original product.