The world’s largest-coffee chain has struggled, like other American restaurant groups, to break into the Italian market. While launching its first Italian coffee store in 2017, Starbucks said it was entering the Italian market with “humility and respect” and has since cautiously expanded to 25 stores throughout northern Italy.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said he came up with the idea of including olive oil in coffee after experimentally mixing a spoon of the green-gold liquid with his own morning brew while in Sicily. “I was absolutely stunned at the unique flavor and texture created,” he said in a release, which heralded the new olive oil range as a “transformational innovation” for coffee drinkers.
Starbucks baristas will mix the oil with oatmilk, either by steaming or shaking it, before pouring the resulting blend into a shot (or two) of either espresso coffee or cold brew to create a flavor described by its menu developers as “caramel-like.”
Many on social media appeared skeptical of the concoction. “Olive oil coffee! I have never seen an Italian drink their espresso with olive oil. Pass,” responded one.
Another called the idea an “atrocity.” One person responded to the news with an emoji for a confounded face.
The coffee will debut in Italy before being rolled out across Starbucks stores in Southern California and elsewhere internationally later this year, the company said.
The range Starbucks described as “buttery” includes three olive-oil infused variations of familiar hot and cold coffee drinks; lattes, iced espressos and cold brews. Customers opting for the oil-mixed cold brew will taste “a silky infusion of Partanna extra virgin olive oil with vanilla sweet cream foam, which slowly cascades through the beverage to create a smooth, yet rich, texture,” Starbucks promised in a description accompanying the menu.
The new range will use oil pressed from a variety of Sicilian olives known as Castelvetrano — described by Starbucks as sweet and reminiscent of some of some of its syrup options. “I think of all the buttery caramels that we mix with our coffee,” Amy Dilger, a Starbucks beverage developer, said of the new flavor in a press release.
It is not the first time the beverage giant has included oil in its coffee drinks — although it may be the first time it has advertised it as an ingredient in marketing campaigns so prominently. Oat milk, which is frequently used as a dairy-free alternative in coffee, already includes vegetable oil, for example — and some Starbucks menus list sunflower oil as an ingredient in its nondairy milk options.
Italian coffee drinkers are known for their traditional preferences: sipping cappucinnos before noon and preferring a speedier shot of espresso later in the day, often taken while standing at a bar — prompting Starbucks to remold its standard offering for the local market. The coffee giant even designed its Italian stores to feature a bar for customers to stand along — mimicking the Italian tradition — and developed a bean blend specifically designed to cater to the tastes of Italian coffee drinkers.
It is notoriously tricky for American food chains to break into the crowded Italian food and drinks market, where consumers seem to be satisfied with what is already on local menus. In 2022, the pizza giant Dominos announced the closure of its Italian franchise stores following poor sales. “Italians don’t like pineapple pizza,” was the headline of one Italian daily newspaper.
