Review: Starbucks Vivanno (Banana Chocolate)
I usually start my day out reading Amazon Daily’s entries. Today there was one about Starbucks new drink the Vivanno — Banana Chocolate and you can have a shot of espresso added. The writer gave it good marks and it sounded interesting. Didn’t think much more about it, that is until we stopped for coffee on the way home from the doc’s.
There we were in Starbucks and feeling adventurous I order a Vivanno, the Banana Chocolate with a shot of espresso. So, here’s the good and the not so good.
Good: It contains a banana which is really good for you. There’s no gritty taste from the whey powder. It doesn’t give you brain freeze like the Frappaccino does. The texture is really nice on the tongue — I sort of imagine it would be like silk if you wanted to actually taste/lick silk but why would you ….
Not so good: There’s no taste. It has a hint of banana, even less of a hint of chocolate and I couldn’t taste the espresso at all. My husband, the coffee hater, took a sip and yucked about the coffee taste. But I really didn’t taste anything. It had less taste than cream of wheat (and I like cream of wheat). It was super bland. I expected it to be banana-chocolate and sort of hoped more chocolate than banana but it wasn’t either.
So, all in all nice temperature, nice texture, filling. But absolutely little to no taste to it as far as my taste buds could tell — perhaps they were out on a break but I finally gave up and threw out 1/3 of it because that stuff they give you before a lower G.I. series has much more flavor than this stuff (at least to me).
Notice all the caveats and IMHOs — I wanted to really like it. I’m disappointed and I won’t order it again. But on the other hand, I love their Iced Caramel Macchiato (this is my new summer favorite).