How those cream-topped, syrup-flavoured drinks can contain up to 13 teaspoons 

Last week we learnt that cakes at High Street coffee shops can contain astonishing amounts of sugar. Now, as Christmas draws near, they have rolled out their cream-topped, syrup-flavoured ‘festive’ drinks, costing more than their normal equivalents and also super-sweet. MATTHEW BELL tried some…

STARBUCKS

FUDGE HOT CHOCOLATE

PRICE: £3.55 for 16oz (around 450ml) ‘grande’ — Starbucks’s medium size. That’s 60p more than the chain’s classic hot chocolate.

NUTRITION: Calories, 369; Fat, 16.1g; Sugar, 39g. This contains the equivalent of ten teaspoons of sugar — some experts suggest we shouldn’t consume more than 30g of added sugar a day, which is about seven-and-a-half teaspoons. While some of the sugar here will be naturally contained in the milk, a fair amount will be added from chocolate and flavouring.

Starbucks’ Fudge Hot Chocolate

THEY SAY: Creamy milk hot chocolate with fudge flavour, topped with a fudge whipped cream and a gold chocolate curl topping.

WE SAY: Imagine putting a Crunchie bar in a blender, then adding sugar and cream. The gold curls create a cheerful first impression but dissolved into a film that clung to my lips, leaving a strange synthetic flavour. I tried a classic hot chocolate afterwards and it tasted bitter compared with this sugary (but heart-warming) slurry.

EGGNOG LATTE

PRICE: £3.25 for grande made with whole milk, without cream. That’s 65p more than a normal Starbucks latte of the same size.

NUTRITION: Calories, 351; Fat, 16.9g; Sugar, 42.9g. This has 50 per cent more calories and fat than a normal Starbucks latte made with whole milk (223 cals, 11.5g fat) plus the equivalent of a whopping ten teaspoons of sugar — three times as much as in the standard latte.

THEY SAY: Rich, steamed eggnog and our signature espresso topped with ground nutmeg.

WE SAY: Proper eggnog is made with raw egg, vanilla, cream and rum — and should be deliciously boozy. You won’t find any egg or alcohol in the Starbucks version — the flavouring is all artificial. Despite that, it does taste rather convincing, with a good hit of vanilla, without being too eggy or cloying. The promised sprinkling of nutmeg was sadly missing, however, so apart from the festive cup it looked like any old latte.

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COSTA

MINT HOT CHOCOLATE

PRICE: £3.55 for a ‘medio’ (medium size) in a takeaway ‘Christmas jumper’-themed cup — 85p more than the normal equivalent drink.

Starbucks’ Eggnon latte

NUTRITION: Calories, 476; Fat, 22.5g; Sugar, 46.3g. This clocks in at almost a quarter of a woman’s daily calorie allowance, with nearly 150 more calories than the standard Costa hot chocolate in the same size, twice the fat, and more than 11 teaspoons of sugar.

THEY SAY: Costa hot chocolate with a dash of mint syrup, topped with freshly whipped cream and served with an elf-sized candy cane.

WE SAY: This had an authentic peppermint flavour, almost as if they’d whizzed up a bar of Kendal mint cake and doused it in cream. The elfin candy stick is a real tooth-breaker but looks charming.

BLACK FOREST HOT CHOCOLATE

PRICE: £3.55 for a 16oz medio made with whole milk — 85p more than a normal hot chocolate.

NUTRITION: Calories, 405; Fat, 20.6g; Sugar, 34.7g. This has more calories than the standard hot chocolate (334 cals) and 50 per cent more fat — 7g more than the 13.6g in the normal version.

THEY SAY: Costa hot chocolate with a dash of Black Forest syrup, topped with freshly whipped cream, chocolate sauce and a real cherry.

WE SAY: It didn’t exactly transport me to Bavaria. The hot chocolate doesn’t taste of cherry, or Black Forest gateau for that matter. It tasted good, if a bit sweet, but didn’t look particularly festive: it came in a plain glass mug with a spoon and a little cherry drowning in a big blob of cream. My barista failed to attempt the drizzled sauce promised in the adverts.

GINGERBREAD LATTE

Costa’s gingerbread latte

PRICE: £3.50 for a medio with whole milk — 80p more than a standard Costa latte in the same size.

NUTRITION: Calories, 329; Fat, 22.2g; Sugar, 17.5g. This has slightly more than the 267 calories in a normal whole-milk Costa latte in the same size — but nearly double the fat and just over four teaspoons of sugar.

THEY SAY: A smooth and creamy latte with a dash of gingerbread syrup, topped with freshly whipped cream, gold stars and our signature gingerbread man.

WE SAY: The poor little gingerbread man (and he is little, about the size of a Ritz cracker) fell flat on his face when my latte was served. But he tasted delicious and very spicy. 

Tiny gold stars are meant to add festive sparkle but mine were a rather underwhelming constellation, obscured by a thick cloud of sickly cream. The coffee had a good gingerbread flavour, though.

CAFFE NERO

PRALINE HOT CHOCOLATE

PRICE: £2.95 for a ‘regular’ (12 oz, made with semi-skimmed milk — Nero’s standard for its hot drinks), served with whipped cream. It will cost you 40p more than a normal hot chocolate.

NUTRITION: Calories, 460; Fat, 22.4g; Sugar, 53.3g. This has 13 teaspoons of sugar and five-and-a-half times the fat found in a standard Caffe Nero hot chocolate, which isn’t topped with cream.

THEY SAY: Hot chocolate with nut syrup, topped with whipped cream and a swirl of caramel sauce.

WE SAY: Probably the sweetest thing you can drink, apart from liquid glucose. Still, it’s good and strong, and came with a liberal serving of proper dark chocolate chips. The caramel sauce got lost in the mountain of cream.

SPICED ORANGE LATTE

PRICE: £2.90 for a regular with semi-skimmed milk — 40p more than a normal latte.

NUTRITION: Calories, 326; Fat, 21.6g; Sugar, 24.5g. Although not the most gut-busting option here, this still has five times the calories found in Nero’s normal latte, plus six teaspoons of sugar.

Cafe Nero’s Praline hot chocolate

THEY SAY: A double espresso with steamed milk and triple sec syrup, topped with whipped cream and finished with Belgian chocolate sprinkles and a dusting of cinnamon.

WE SAY: Sounds sumptuous but has the slightly naff taste of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange — so much so that you can’t tell if there’s any coffee in there; the synthetic orange is overpowering. The promise of triple sec (an orange liqueur) sounds exciting but you won’t be getting tiddly on one of these — there’s no actual alcohol in the syrup. You’re left wondering whether you’ve drunk a coffee, eaten a pudding or just struggled through an unhappy mixture of the two.

TIRAMISU HOT CHOCOLATE

PRICE: £3.05 for a regular made with semi-skimmed milk and topped with cream — 40p more than the standard hot chocolate.

NUTRITION: Calories, 447; Fat, 22.4g; Sugar, 51.2g.

THEY SAY: Hot chocolate with tiramisu syrup, topped with whipped cream and a dusting of chocolate powder.

WE SAY: A surprisingly close approximation of the Italian pudding. But given that it looks like a pudding, tastes like a pudding and has all the health merits of a trough of tiramisu, you might as well go the full Pavarotti and have the real thing.

McDONALD’S

SPICED COOKIE LATTE

McDonald’s spiced cookie latte

PRICE: £1.89 for a medium (12oz), compared with £1.49 for a normal McDonald’s latte.

NUTRITION: Calories, 174; Fat, 5.7g; Sugar, 22g. This isn’t too different calorie-wise from the standard McDonald’s latte. However, it does have five-and-a-half teaspoons of sugar, compared with three teaspoons in the normal version.

THEY SAY: A large shot of espresso blended with steamed organic milk and spiced cookie-flavour syrup, topped with a swirl of cream and a sprinkle of spiced sugar dusting.

WE SAY: This tastes as if someone has dropped half a spice rack in it by accident. There’s a generous crust of cinnamon sugar on top and far too much nutmeg in the coffee, leaving a bitter aftertaste. It also looks nothing like the beverage in the advert — instead of a stiff snowdrift of cream, the stuff on my drink wilted before I could lift the cup to my lips.

PRET A MANGER

MINT HOT CHOCOLATE

PRICE: £2.75 for a regular (approx 12oz) size.

NUTRITION: Calories, 278; Fat, 5.3g; Sugar, 44.5g. This contains the equivalent of 11 teaspoons of sugar — four more than in Pret’s standard hot chocolate.

Pret’s mint hot chocolate

THEY SAY: An indulgent treat just for Christmas — our organic hot chocolate with a shot of mint syrup and topped with optional whipped cream.

WE SAY: Pret really don’t seem to be trying very hard this Christmas. I asked for their seasonal hot drink and was received with a bemused shrug. And I can see why: there’s really nothing festive about the mint hot chocolate except the wreath on the paper cup. It didn’t taste of mint and certainly didn’t taste of Christmas. Hardly worth the calorie hit.