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The Oprah Winfrey Chai Latte is Starbucks’ Weirdest Move Yet

By Margaret Weinberg at New York University

There are plenty of weird Oprah products for sale. There are T-shirts and inspirational decorations. There are even portraits of Oprah made from rice straw. And now you can have your Oprah paraphernalia and drink it too. That’s right – Oprah and a team of Teavana teaologists (try to say that five times fast) have teamed up to create the new Starbucks Oprah Winfrey Chai Latte.

What does this mean for the casual chai tea latte consumer? Well we imagine it went a lot like it sounds. Can’t you just see a bunch of “teaologists” and Oprah in a room mixing chai lattes until they get it just right, until they achieve just the right balance between spice and sweetness that invokes positive Oprah thoughts. But this chai is more than just a chai. It’s a philanthropic chai. One dollar of every sale goes to the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation and benefits youth education.

Realizing our goals of drinking chai lattes, benefiting youth and thinking about Oprah simultaneously were so close at hand, we couldn’t wait to check it out. In order to fully experience the Oprah Chai Latte we did a side-by-side comparison with Starbuck’s regular chai tea latte.  (*Note: Both Chai Lattes in this taste test were iced, we have no authority on Hot Oprah Chai Lattes). Here is a summation of our thoughts while tasting the two lattes:

• Wow Oprah is much more subtle, we thought she would be robust
• You can only taste the difference if you take sips of water between the two different chai lattes.
• Oprah tastes slightly more like honey.
• Actually Oprah just tastes less spicy.
• Both of these lattes left weird aftertastes in our mouths, which is more of a result of the natural aftertaste of milk, rather than the Chais themselves.
• Are the ingredients actually different in these lattes?
• The ingredients must be different because Oprah has less calories.
• Oprah is also more expensive, what’s up with that?
• Oh wait, this money goes to charity.
• This latte tastes like goodwill and youth education.
• We definitely should have ordered a dirty chai. Then we could have said “one dirty Oprah please.”

And that pretty much sums it up. If you want to try this novel latte yourself, swing by your local Starbucks. Maybe do some side-by-side testing? Or just buy the charitable latte like a good person and enjoy being able to say “I’ll have a Tall Oprah to go.”