Last night, I passed by for my friend over at Starbucks and noticed that they were featuring a new coffee concoction–Salted Caramel Mocha Frappuccino. I like caramel; I love mocha…come to think of it, I do like salt, as well. What’s a girl to do but go and check it out? I had the perfect opportunity to do so earlier today, as I killed time in Starbucks while waiting for my 1 pm “Online Journalism” workshop to start. Got the hot drink because, once again, more calories in the frap (or is that all in my mind? LOL).

So about the drink…well, it was – of course – served in the standard Starbucks paper cup. I was curious as to the “presentation” of the actual drink so I removed the lid. It basically looked like your typical mocha with whipped cream, only this time, the cream was also topped with caramel sauce and rock salt.

The first sip was pretty good. Nothing mind-blowing, but good. As the name suggests, it was mocha infused with caramel syrup. The salty taste mostly came from the rock salt on the cream – that was kind of disappointing. I’d expected to have that salty essence more integrated in the drink itself somehow. Instead, when I finished with the topping, I was pretty much left with just the caramel mocha.

It actually reminded me of the drink my friend, Sheila, and I had in Starbucks when we were in Hamburg two years ago. I’ve forgotted the exact name of the drink, but it was similar to that. I guess it made more of an impact then because it was so friggin’ cold then. That was in November, and the fog was so thick we couldn’t see the tip of the Rathaus. That hot caramel mocha was such a comfort to us that we just had to go back later that evening for a nightcap. *sighs* Memories of Germany.

But back to the present. All in all, I enjoyed my li’l cup of joe, though I’d have to say that it wasn’t anything extraordinary. I wonder if the frappuccino version is better. We’ll see if I get around to trying that one.