This year Starbucks came back with their holiday cups on November 1st but surprised everyone by having the cups be green and not red. Starbucks has been releasing unique red cups for the holiday season every year since 1997. I’m sure all of you heard about the mass controversy over last year’s holiday cup, so this might have been the safest bet for them. In the past Starbucks holiday cups have always been red and feature some kind of design which has to do with Christmas and winter in general. Last year Starbucks released a plain red cup with nothing on it, which caused a lot of controversy. Starbucks said they did it so they were non-denominational but people were offended for all sorts of reasons. Take a look at the cups over the years:
Clearly there is a huge difference between the past years and 2015’s cup and people claimed they were being “anti-Christmas”. This year though, there was an even bigger step away from Christmas with them making their cup green for the first time ever and not featuring anything to do with Christmas or Winter. The green cup was designed by artist Shogo Ota and features an abundance of faces including that of “a coffee farmer, a family, a barista, friends embracing,” which are drawn by one continuous line. Their CEO Howard Shulz said “during a diverse time in our country, Starbucks wanted to create a symbol of unity as a reminder of our shared values,” in a recent press release. Their hope is to change everyone’s feelings from last year and redeem themselves by celebrating everyone during the holidays.
Read more about what Starbucks has to say about the new cups.
They are also back with everyone’s favorite holiday drinks! The drinks this year are the same as last year and are the Chestnut Praline Latte, Caramel Brulée Latte and the Peppermint Mocha (and its skinny version), Eggnog Latte and Gingerbread Latte. The Chestnut Praline Latte is made with espresso, steamed milk and flavors of caramelized chestnuts and holiday spices and then topped with whipped cream and a sprinkled with spiced praline crumbs. The Caramel Brulée Latte is made with espresso, steamed milk and a caramel brulée sauce then topped with whipped cream and caramel brulée topping. The peppermint mocha is made with espresso, steamed milk, mocha sauce and peppermint-flavored syrup and is topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate curls. The Eggnog Latte consists of espresso, steamed eggnog and milk and dusted with ground nutmeg. The Gingerbread Latte is made of espresso and steamed milk with flavoring gingerbread and topped with whipped cream and ground nutmeg.
With further research we actually found that Starbucks hasn’t mentioned anywhere or hinted at all that these green cups are their holiday cups and people may be freaking out for no reason. Although the holiday drinks did come out on November 1st this year, the typical release for the holiday cups is November 10th. Starbucks says these cups are meant to “celebrate community” (not the holidays) and are available for a limited time while supplies last. Does this mean that we could be seeing a typical red cup per tradition coming out soon? We hope so! Starbucks is saying that their holiday plans are “still under wraps” and that people should “stay tuned” to see what they have coming.