Sweet and fruity taste of autumn comes to Starbucks Japan — we try the new Fruit Crush drinks!

Starbucks never ceases to delight us with their tempting seasonal creations, and here in Japan they’ve done it again this autumn with two new beverages that they released on October 1, the “Fruit Crush & Tea” and “Fruit Crush & Cream Frappuccino“. Both are fruit infused tea-based drinks that should be prefectly relaxing as the weather gets cooler heading into fall. Naturally, we had to try these, and we sent one of our Japanese reporters to a Starbucks the day the drinks were released!

Now, a fall beverage containing plenty of fruits certainly sounds tasty and even healthy (well…maybe if you don’t count the cream content of the Frappuccino), and we were eager to find out how they tasted.

▼ Not surprisingly, the new drinks were being heavily promoted at all the Starbucks branches.

▼ Here are the actual items, and they were delightfully colorful with a visually fruity feel.

First, let’s take a look at the Fruit Crush & Tea. The clear yet bright red color was striking and certainly eye-catching, which should make the drink particularly popular with the ladies.

And even more noteworthy is the large amount of actual fruit pieces contained in the drink. Just taking one sip felt like a whole field of fruit burst in our mouth. There are apparently four fruits — strawberry, apple, raspberry and red grape — used in the beverage, and they blended extremely well with the tea, seeming to warm us pleasantly from the inside out. In fact, we could even imagine adding a little alcohol to this drink and turning it into a tasty “hot cocktail”.

And moving on to the Fruit Crush & Cream Frappuccino, the bright color was again very appealing and got us quite excited even before we drank any of it!

The same four fruits are also used in this drink in addition to a base of fruit sauce and iced tea and milk cream…mmmm yum! The crunchy freeze-dried pieces of strawberry and apple gave the beverage a nice bit of texture.

So, our impression of the two new drinks? They’re likely to be enjoyable for men and women alike, but the color and aroma should particularly appeal to women. There’s just something about the fruity sweetness that speaks to the young girl in all of us. The gentle and soothing flavor of fruit should be particularly welcome when you’re tired after a hard day’s work.

The two beverages are available for a limited time until November 30, at a price of 420 yen (US$3.50, short size) and 460 yen (tall size) for the Fruit Crush & Tea, and 550 yen for the Fruit Crush & Cream Frappuccino (tall sie only). Here’s to all of the wonderful tastes of autumn we can enjoy before the bitter winter cold sets in (and then we’ll need a whole new set of hot beverages to deal with the cold, won’t we?) !

[ Read in Japanese ]

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