Starbucks Caffè Mocha

The Starbucks Caffè Mocha costs £5.30 for a Tall and carries 283 calories in a Grande, which puts it between a latte and a hot chocolate on both counts. Bittersweet mocha sauce goes in with the espresso, steamed milk follows, and whipped cream sits on top as standard.

The sauce is what separates it from a chocolate drink with coffee in it. Starbucks mocha sauce is built to be bitter rather than sweet, so it works with the dark roast instead of covering it, and the finish is closer to dark chocolate than to cocoa powder. The whipped cream matters more than it looks: it melts down into the surface over the first two or three minutes and thickens the whole drink as it goes.

Fat is the figure that surprises people. A Grande carries 11.2g of it, 8.8g of that saturated, which is close to half the 20g saturated fat reference intake for an adult. Sugar is 30.1g. Calories run 147 in a Short, 230 in a Tall, 283 in a Grande and 360 in a Venti. Caffeine follows the usual espresso pattern at 89.1mg through Tall and Grande, and 133.7mg in a Venti.

The cream is also why it should be drunk fairly soon. Once it has melted fully the drink loses its top layer and the sauce that has settled towards the bottom starts to dominate, so the last third tastes considerably sweeter than the first. A stir halfway through fixes it. Baristas building takeaway mochas stir the sauce and shots properly before the milk goes in for exactly this reason, and a badly stirred one separates within minutes.

No whipped cream is the single biggest change available and takes roughly 70 calories and most of the saturated fat off a Grande. It is a cold weather drink and Starbucks sells them accordingly, with volumes rising sharply from October. The White Chocolate Mocha is the sweeter version at 345 calories, and the Classic Hot Chocolate is the same idea without any coffee in it at all.