It’s official: Tazo is being well and truly expunged from all of the Starbucks stores. I learned this today when I requested a refill of Refresh after my monstrous reward drink of a venti Caramel Brulé soymilk frappuccino with three extra shots, light ice, and whipped cream on top. What can I say? It was a day full of bureaucracy, as I pulled everything together for my visa application so that I can stay in New Zealand for most of 2015. It took me the whole day because of various and sundry retarded obstacles, such as the virtually unstaffed and totally not user-friendly Fedex office location where I went… So anyway no food all day and it was 4pm, and I had also missed my midday caffeine infusion, so I went for the most monstrous of all possible reward drinks… It was way too sweet because I forgot to say half the syrup, so I drank some of it down and then poured in some nonfat milk to make it potable. By the end, I was not hungry any longer, but I was pining for a post-meal mint tea.
Alas, there is no more Refresh. Whatever was in the stores is not being replenished. This store had only Zen and Green Tips, my old and dear friend. Fortunately I bought some of the tins as they were heading out the door, but I was told at the time that Tazo sachets would still be available at the stores for hot drinks. Not so, it has now emerged. They must have been trying to humor me and the few other Tazo fans out there. When I mentioned that Teavana uses artificial flavorings in all of their blends, and Tazo uses none, the barista shrugged her shoulders and seemed unconcerned. Probably because all of the Starbucks syrups also contain artificial flavorings.
Today’s Green Tips, albeit not precisely what I was after, was very good. I remembered to ask that a few ice cubes be dropped in the cup to prevent overheating, and I removed the bags after only a couple of minutes. A quite decent Mao Feng. How Teavana won the battle of Teavana vs. Tazo is beyond me…
bah! there goes another of my tempations :P