- There are now over 45,000 posts on Instagram with the hashtag #Starbuckssecretmenu.
- These menu items are generally made with ingredients that are already available at Starbucks, and multiple secret menu items have gone viral on social media. They're not quite official, however.
- I tried 10 Starbucks secret menu items to see if they're worth the hype. Though some of the drinks were quite tasty, I don't think I'll be ordering them in the future because of the associated additional fees and the complex ordering process that could easily confuse - or even annoy - baristas.
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Starbucks' secret menu is not really a secret.
There are over 45,000 posts on Instagram that include the hashtag #Starbuckssecretmenu. Multiple secret menu items have gone viral on social media, and at least one wildly popular one has even been added to the chain's official menu.
Secret menu items are mainly created by Starbucks fans and fan-based blogs to fit personal tastes or to celebrate holidays and events in pop culture. They're generally made with ingredients that are already available at the chain.
Baristas, however, do not seem to be enjoying the secret menu trend. Many have taken to online forums like Reddit to complain about customers who come to order popular "secret" drinks but do not have the recipes required to make them.
I did my research before going to Starbucks to order these combinations for the first time. Still, I found that a lot of the instructions online were not clear enough for the baristas to understand exactly what I wanted.
Five of the drinks I tried were concoctions that have been popular for years, appearing on several must-try lists curated by media outlets. Most in this group were created by individual customers to fit their personal tastes, and they later caught on through social media. The other five I tried were more recent inventions, all having been created this year. The majority in this group were made by Starbucks fan blogs to celebrate holidays or events in pop culture.
Though some of the drinks were quite tasty, I can't see myself ordering them in the future because of the high additional fees and the complex ordering process.
Here's how my first Starbucks secret menu experience went.