Starbucks Strawberry Acai Starbucks Refresha Drink

The Starbucks Strawberry Acai Refresha costs £5.80 for a Tall and carries 79 calories in a Grande. A strawberry and acai base is shaken with ice and dried strawberry pieces, over the same green coffee extract that runs through the whole Refresha range.

Acai is doing less than the name implies. On its own the berry is earthy and barely sweet, and in this drink it sits behind the strawberry as a slightly tart, almost grape like depth rather than a flavour you could name blind. Strawberry leads and reads as jammy rather than fresh. The dried pieces rehydrate as the drink sits and end up soft enough to chew, which divides opinion more than anything else on the cold menu.

Sugar is 18.1g in a Grande out of 18.4g of carbohydrate. Calories run 62 in a Tall, 79 in a Grande and 97 in a Venti, so it sits between the Cool Lime at 69 and the Pink Coconut at 121 for the same size. Caffeine is 4.9mg in a Grande, half what the Cool Lime carries.

The dried fruit is the part people either love or send back. Rehydrated strawberry has a soft, slightly grainy texture that is nothing like fresh fruit, and it collects at the bottom of the glass where the straw finds it. Stores will leave it out on request. It costs the drink nothing nutritionally and takes away most of what makes it look like a Refresha rather than a squash.

It is the base of the Pink Drink that spread from the US, which is this Refresha made with coconut drink instead of water and is on the UK menu as Pink Coconut. Ordered with light ice it comes out stronger rather than more diluted, which is unusual for a shaken drink. The Pink Coconut Refresha is that creamier version, and the Cool Lime Refresha is the sharper, lighter one.