dulce de leche 2 days late

At 9:27am this morning, I ordered my first grande dulce de leche latte at Starbucks. The drink debuted on April 3rd, and took 18 months to development.

It is delicious! This drink you have to imbibe with the plastic cap off, to get the full texture of the whipped cream and the toffee nuggets. It wasn’t the easiest thing to order b/c it’s hard to pronounce. I also find myself gravitating to less sweet, actually, non-sweet, drinks over time, so I probably won’t be getting this one very often at all.

What is Dulce de Leche? This Business Week article gives the back story:

Dulce de leche is a caramel-and-milk dessert enjoyed throughout much of the region. What’s more, Häagen-Dazs introduced dulce de leche ice cream in 1998, and Starbucks followed suit with its own ice cream in 1999. So Americans are familiar with the flavor, says McKenzie, but “it still has a nice exotic edge to it.” Besides, she adds, caramel and milk go great with coffee.

[update] TODAY show features the drink [ht: starbucksgossip]