It's hot in the city - the curative properties of Frescato

Now one of these pictures came from the Costa website and one was a shot I took of my restorative head-freeze drink balanced on a white board in the middle of a busy London street - I wonder which is which?!. A few people did stop and stare and think that taking pictures of a drink was 'slightly odd'. And that's saying a lot for London!


I was forced to find something to drink in Starbucks earlier this week. Now I appreciate that I am definitely in the minority here but coffee doesn’t do it for me (it joins the tomato list) and finding alternatives to coffee in a coffee shop is quite an art. I used to plump for Diet Coke (if they sold it) but that’s just so 2005 for me! Then it was water – still if you please, which seemed rather dull but then I was introduced to Costa Coffee Frescatos. My, how exciting the world of coffee shops had become, Tough I figured pretty quickly that I needed to be in a Costa Coffee to partake of such a delightful brew and this doesn’t really help me when I am in a Starbucks and very hot and thirsty. Another thing that joins the black list with tomatoes and coffee us whipped cream I like to cook with cream and am very happy to have mussels with a creamy cider sauce, leeks in a cream sauce and a little in my mash potatoes if I’m feeling indulgent but not cold and drizzled over a dessert or in whipped mounds slathered in a cream cake or over anything. Now Costa didn’t chuck any whipped cream at their fine Frescatos but in the last couple of months they have added it to the top pf my favourite double chocolate flake, renamed it ‘indulgent’ and charged a little more. Sneaky! Now I am aware of this cunning ploy I can prevent them from spoiling my double chocolate flake icy fabulous creation. However I am here in Starbucks and it seems to be coffee in a variety of guises Tazo (trendy tea I presume, or wasn’t it those funny plastic hexagonal things you used to get in crisps packets, I am confused!) and a Strawberries and Cream Frappuccino which seems a little like my beloved Frescato. Naturally I eschew the whipped cream unnecessarily adorning it but am sure that cream features in other ways and it turns out my suspicions are correct - there are some dubious lumps of white cloudy stuff bobbing around in my drink. I suppose like a poor man’s Isle de flottante – not what I want in my drink. Hmm I wish I was in a Costa! I extol the virtues of my much missed Frescato to someone drinking a skinny, light, Soya, probably coffee free and taste free colour of washing up water - I kid you not - coffee style drink. I am not sure she's had a drink so wanton. I mention that the fruit ones are fat free and she looks sceptical!Today I needed by head to be frozen to counteract the extreme heat of the melting London streets and naturally my boiling brain turns its thought to Frescato. I am not sure that double chocolate is required and I'm not sure I still have the power to construct the sentence 'definitely without the whipped cream please' so I have a Summer Berries, which is seriously a pleasing colour. So pleasing in fact that I have to record it for my blog and raise a few eyebrows outside a very busy sizzling city station. I blame the heat! Of course, when the summer ends and that will surely be as randomly as it started I will no longer be able to frequent coffee shops unless I can face a hot chocolate - without the whipped cream of course!