‘It went down smoother’: Starbucks’ olive oil coffee approved in Milan
Starbucks is once again daring to challenge Italy’s sacred coffee-drinking tradition by blending the beverage with another of the country’s revered food items: olive oil.
The US chain launched a range of coffees laced with olive oil at its main store in central Milan on Wednesday.
Called oleato – a play on words between the Italian terms oliva (olive) and oliato (meaning oiled, and, by extension, smooth) – the range includes an iced shaken espresso, an espresso martini and olive oil latte “steamed with oat milk”.
The idea came to Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz, he said, during a trip to Sicily, where he adopted a daily ritual of taking a spoonful of extra virgin olive oil along with his morning coffee before deciding to experiment by mixing the two together.
In an announcement on the company’s website, Shultz, whose vision for Starbucks came about during a visit to Italy in 1983, said he can’t remember a moment in the last 40 years when he’s been “more excited, more enthused”, adding that olive oil’s “unexpected, velvety, buttery flavour … enhanced the coffee and lingers beautifully on the palate”.
When Starbucks first ventured to Italy in 2018 with its inaugural store – the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Milan – it caused a mini-uproar among coffee traditionalists, with many seeing it as an attack on the home of espresso and not needed in a country full of traditional coffee bars.
But the vibe has shifted since then, and customers at the store on Piazza Cordusio – a former post office designed much like a coffee museum – appeared to be in less of a froth about the olive oil-infused line.
Not far from Milan’s famed cathedral, a bold yellow sign announced that the product is now on sale, while a large can of oil stood in the centre
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