Starbucks Starbucks Milk Chocolate Gold Coin

The Starbucks Milk Chocolate Gold Coin costs £1.35 and carries 120 calories with 14g of sugar. A foil wrapped milk chocolate coin stamped with the Starbucks siren.

At £1.35 it is the cheapest item on the entire Starbucks UK menu, food or drink, below the cookie straw at £1.40 and well under any bag of crisps. For anyone wanting something small alongside a coffee, nothing else on the counter costs less.

All 14g of the carbohydrate is sugar, with none left over as starch, which is exactly what milk chocolate looks like on a label. Fat is 6.4g with 3.9g saturated, and salt at 0.03g is the lowest figure of any item on the menu.

Foil wrapping does a job beyond appearance. Chocolate picks up other smells readily and softens at temperatures a counter easily reaches, and a foil layer slows both, which is why coins have kept that packaging while most confectionery moved to plastic film.

It is a small thing and the figures reflect that. 120 calories is less than a third of a bag of crisps and under a fifth of most things in the bakery case, so as an impulse purchase at the till it is one of the more modest ones available.

The siren stamped into it is the only Starbucks branding on any food item in the case, which is most of what distinguishes this from a chocolate coin bought anywhere else. It is bought as much for that as for the chocolate, particularly by anyone collecting or buying for a child.

Chocolate coins have been sold in gold foil since the nineteenth century, originally as a Christmas tradition tied to the story of Saint Nicholas leaving gold coins for the poor. Starbucks sells them year round, which is a departure from the usual seasonal pattern in UK shops.

The only allergen declared against it is milk, and no dietary labels are published, so it carries no vegetarian marking despite containing no obvious meat derivative. Prices reach £1.65 on delivery.