How much would you pay to have your iced coffee not turn into a watered-down java-flavored slush if you don’t drink it fast enough? Starbucks is speculating that it’s worth at least 80 cents and that’s exactly what the chain is charging for the new coffee ice cubes it’s testing. Your days of not getting enough caffeine in your morning cup of (iced) joe are over!
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Grubstreet reports that the cubes are currently available at approximately 100 location in Baltimore and St. Louis, and beyond just being useful for a regular old cup of beans, the baristas at these locations are also dropping the caffeinated cubes into all the frappuccinos being ordered. According to users on Reddit, where the information first leaked, if you like fraps now, you’ll love them even more when they’re flavored with more coffee. The taste has been described as stronger and “a lot smoother” and now that the world knows that these things exist, expect Starbucks to get busier and (hopefully) roll out the new-fangled ice cubes to more stores.
Concerned about quality control? The ice cubes are not made in stores. Instead, they’re made off-site and shipped to each location in huge blocks. Employees then break up the blocks and put them in your beverages upon request. According to GrubStreet, you should probably have a little pity on your barista when you order a drink with the new ice cubes, though Because the cubes are so new, they aren’t kept in the front of the store. Instead, baristas have to jog to the back freezers to get them every time someone asks for them. This may not be so bad now, GS notes, but it’s only the beginning of the summer. Soon, customers could be lined up from the front to the back of the store just like they were when the Unicorn frap dropped.
No word yet on when Starbucks will expand their menus to include the ice cubes nationwide, but according to social media, fans of the coffee shop are ecstatic about this turn of events.
