{"id":5112,"date":"2012-12-01T08:36:20","date_gmt":"2012-12-01T16:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=5112"},"modified":"2012-12-02T14:51:11","modified_gmt":"2012-12-02T22:51:11","slug":"the-green-coffee-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2012\/12\/01\/the-green-coffee-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"The green-coffee scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walk into any coffee shop this time of year and you\u2019ll find the typical assortment of festively flavoured coffees. Pumpkin spice, peppermint, gingerbread, and eggnog lattes abound alongside the artificial garlands and animatronic Santas.<\/p>\n

But Starbucks has recently added something new to their coffee repertoire that you may have missed among the twinkling lights and mounds of whipped cream: green coffee extract.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The coffee bean, at the heart of the latest cash-grab scheme (airintake at en.wikipedia).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Touted as the chain\u2019s latest breakthrough in coffee, this so-called natural energy booster is the star ingredient in Starbucks Refreshers.<\/p>\n

Refreshers, fruit-flavoured and fizzy, were introduced this past summer and hopped right on the health-drink bandwagon by offering flavours like pomegranate and hibiscus, claiming to be high in vitamins and tossing around the words \u201cnatural\u201d and \u201cgreen\u201d like it was their job.<\/p>\n

But the main attraction in the Refresher is the caffeine derived from unroasted (green) coffee beans.<\/p>\n

All the marketing language around these new drinks suggests Starbucks is trying to convince us that these over-sweetened, caffeine-laden creations are not just your average energy drink. Somehow we\u2019re supposed to believe that caffeine extracted from an unroasted coffee bean is more \u201cnatural\u201d than the energy boosters found in Red Bull and Monster. Must be because it\u2019s \u201cgreen,\u201d right? Or maybe Red Bull uses some sort of evil-robots-torturing-puppies method of extraction we just are not aware of.<\/p>\n

But wait! How could I be so naive to think that the corporate coffee slingers would be so obvious in their marketing ploys? Turns out Starbucks is also attempting to wrangle the one customer base bigger than the health-conscious: dieters.<\/p>\n

Starbucks touts the low-calorie nature of their Refreshers, and in the periphery of pop culture there is a buzz about green coffee\u2019s amazing fat-burning abilities. Doctor Oz has even endorsed green coffee extract as an effective dieting tool on his program.<\/p>\n

I know what you\u2019re thinking: \u201cDr. Oz and<\/em> Starbucks are saying green coffee extract is the bomb? Why have I been drinking anything else?\u201d Don\u2019t worry, you can now stock your shelves with stylish little cans of Refreshers and get all the health benefits of artificial sweeteners, caffeine, and carbonated water that your body can handle.<\/p>\n

And if you ever feel like treating yourself to something a little less healthy, Starbucks will be happy to serve you up a 360-calorie eggnog latte with extra whip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Walk into any coffee shop this time of year and you\u2019ll find the typical assortment of festively flavoured coffees. Pumpkin spice, peppermint, gingerbread, and eggnog lattes abound alongside the artificial garlands and animatronic Santas. But Starbucks has recently added something new to their coffee repertoire that you may have missed among the twinkling lights and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,11,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-issue","category-november-28-2012"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5112"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5232,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5112\/revisions\/5232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}