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The global coffee house chain is squeezing one more star ingredient into their beverage lineup before the end of the year.

Starbucks Japan has had a flurry of delicious new releases in the past couple of months, with baked apple dessert drinks, Christmas Frappuccinos and a surprise matcha white chocolate beverage. With so many new delights to enjoy on the menu, we thought that would be it for the year, but Starbucks has just delighted everyone with the announcement that there’ll be one more new release before 2017.

Scheduled to appear from 26 December, the new range of hot and cold drinks combine the sweetness of chocolate with the fruity freshness of banana. And there are two varieties of hot and cold beverages to choose from.

▼ Below left is the Chocolatey Banana Cocoa and the Chocolatey Banana Cocoa Frappuccino. On the right are hot and cold versions of the drink made with white chocolate.

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The new drinks are filled with rich and creamy chocolate, and feature beautiful toppings of whipped cream, crumbed banana sponge cake pieces, and chocolate sauce. The aroma of banana is said to be intense, thanks to the addition of banana pieces, which have been roasted with sugar to provide a sweet, crunchy element to the drinks.

The frozen Frappuccino beverages incorporate generous servings of chocolate-coated wheat puffs into their thick and creamy bases, giving them enticing, speckled appearances, while the white chocolate versions of the drink are said to have more fragrant, sweet flavours of milk in the mix.

The Frappuccino drinks retail for 560 yen (US$4.77) each, while the hot drinks come in various sizes, priced from 420 – 540 yen. The range will be on sale at Starbucks outlets around Japan from 26 December to 14 February next year.

Source, images: Starbucks Japan