I wrote a similar piece about Starbucks' Pistachio Cream Cold Brew exactly a year ago. The chain's first new flavor of 2023, pistachio cream foam, was so popular that it returned this year in cold brew and latte form.
This week, Starbucks introduced the new Iced Shaken Hazelnut Oat Milk Espresso to its 2024 Winter Menu. The chain associates post-holiday winter melancholy with woodsy and buttery nut flavors.
In large part due to the lack of foam, the Iced Shaken Hazelnut Latte lacks the head-spinning hazelnut smell of the pistachio one a year earlier.
The hazelnut taste is muted, letting the coffee shine. This is great for those like my colleague Daniel Kline, whose pistachio cream review will follow, but I prefer dessert-like drinks over coffee.
As I rarely have drinks that require milk, I cannot comment on oat versus almond versus cow, but the oat milk base will suit plant-based eaters. Starbucks' March 2021 Iced Brown Sugar Shaken Espresso, another milky coffee drink with caramelized sugar instead of hazelnut, is most like the new latte.
At 180 calories per grande, this is still an indulgence that even the most devoted Starbucks fan wouldn't drink often, but it's more likely to appeal to those who still wanted coffee flavor.
In late 2014, Starbucks introduced cold foam to its iced coffees, changing the game. Dunkin' and other competitors had to copy that innovation, forcing the innovator to create more cold foam tastes.
The “salted brown-buttery sprinkles” don't make a flavor contrast like the burnt sugar pieces in the Caramel Brûlée. "blank" works as a cold foam taste, but Starbucks' 2023 Chocolate Cream and Salted Caramel Cold Foams are better.