Starbucks Espresso

A Starbucks Espresso carries 7 calories in a Doppio and 89.1mg of caffeine, which makes it the smallest drink on the Starbucks UK menu and one of the strongest by volume. It is sized in shots rather than cups: Solo, Doppio, Triple and Quad, from one shot to four.

Everything about the signature roast shows here because there is nothing else in the cup. Dark chocolate and toasted nut on the front, a caramel sweetness in the middle, and a bitter finish that lasts. The crema on top should be a firm hazel colour and hold for thirty seconds or so; a shot that loses its crema immediately was pulled too fast or from stale beans. Served in a demitasse, it is two or three mouthfuls in total.

Starbucks UK does not publish a delivery price for a plain espresso, so no figure sits above. Calories are negligible across every size: 4 in a Solo, 7 in a Doppio, 16 in a Triple and 21 in a Quad. Caffeine goes 44.6mg, 89.1mg, 99mg and 132mg, which is the one place the numbers do something unexpected. The step from Doppio to Triple adds only about 10mg because Starbucks pulls those as ristretto shots.

The shot count is also the cheapest way to understand what everything else on the menu costs. Every espresso drink Starbucks UK sells is built from these same shots, so a Grande latte and a Grande cappuccino carry identical caffeine at 89.1mg because both take two. What changes between them is milk, syrup and cup size, which is where the calories and most of the price come from. An espresso is the menu with all of that stripped away.

Drink it standing at the bar within a minute of it landing, because an espresso goes sour as it cools and the crema is gone inside two minutes. Ask for it in a preheated cup if the store is quiet enough to bother. Hot water over the top makes it a Caffè Americano, and a small spoon of foam on top makes it an Espresso Macchiato.