McDonald’s has launched a Birthday Cake Latte, and I’m heartbroken because it doesn’t taste like any birthday cake I have ever tasted.
I’m currently going through all five stages of grief.
Denial: Maybe they made it wrong? (I’ve tried it twice now and I can confidently say this is just what it tastes like).
Anger: Why doesn’t this taste better?
Bargaining: Should I add some more sugar?
Depression: I can’t believe I wasted my money on this.
I know acceptance is next, but I feel more like Jade Yarbrough at Noosa Park, yelling at a limping Michael Clarke.
I’m just too overcome with emotion to accept closure OK? I prefer to call the Birthday Cake Latte a “dog” to feel better.
The new coffee was created to celebrate 30 years of McCafe, with McDonald’s even give Aussies a free coffee (Birthday Cake or otherwise) on Monday as part of the celebrations.
I was lured in by McDonald’s to try its latest coffee because it sounded bloody yummy.
The coffee concoction is made from Aussie coffee combined with “delicious cake flavours”.
Who doesn’t want to combine coffee and cake? In fact, I will argue that coffee and cake is a better duo than doughnuts and coffee.
I was practically drooling and ready to give it a try. I felt like Pete Evans being introduced to a new cut of steak.
I hightailed it out of my metropolitan suburb in Sydney, which is filled with niche cafes that describe exactly how they roast their coffee and headed straight to my nearest and dearest McDonald’s.
Forget the boutique barista vibe. I wanted a drink that would make Gloria Jeans feel like its Cookies and Cream frappé was too savoury.
I was disappointed to discover it tasted like a regular latte with too much sugar. Like drinking a caramel latte but without the caramel.
I felt burnt.
I think what hurt the most is that I know that the birthday cake flavour is possible to get right.
Oreo released a birthday cake edition of its classic chocolate biscuit, which is delicious! Yet somehow McDonald’s missed the mark and created something that just isn’t worth celebrating.
I can accept even through my disappointment that this could a me issue. Everyone has different taste, right? Maybe someone else would take a sip and think it tasted exactly like birthday cake!
So I brought a standard coffee from McDonald’s and a Birthday Cake Latte and brought them into the news.com.au office to experiment.
It was a very sophisticated operation. I poured each latte into an individual cup and asked my co-workers if they could taste the difference between the two.
If they could then I’d hit them with a second question: Did the sweeter drink taste like birthday cake?
Sure it might sound like a fairly straightforward operation but I treated it like a Baz Luhrmann production (aka I moved a plant so it looked nicer for the video).
More Coverage
The results? Well, my three co-workers did work out pretty quickly which one was the Birthday Cake latte, but all three agreed that it didn’t taste like birthday cake.
As the news.com.au youth editor Ally Foster summed up: “That doesn’t taste like a birthday cake I’ve ever had.”
Same, girl, same.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7r7HWrGWcp51jrrZ7y6Kdnqukrrmme8Wopp1noprAta3Uq5inrKNir6K%2B0miknJyfo66tsNJmn5qrXaGutrrCoZydZZFiu6bDjJymn56VmnqiusNmrp6ulWLBpr%2FTnptmoaRku6bD0maqraeirnx5sZRwbG9vYpp9pn%2FBam1qb2NmgnWFwXFpm3BpmrJ4fQ%3D%3D