With just a month to go until Christmas, high street coffee chains are transitioning their drinks menus from sickeningly sweet pumpkin spice lattes to furiously festive gingerbread coffees and sugary hot chocolates.
Starbucks, Greggs, Costa, Pret a Manger, and Caffe Nero, are all offering these addictively sweet and delicious drinks – but all the Christmas offerings have a high sugar content and often contain the same amount of calories as a small meal.
Experts have warned against indulging too often in these ‘secret sugar bombs’, as many of them contain significantly more than the NHS recommended maximum daily sugar intake of 30g.
This year, Caffe Nero’s new Orange Hot Chocolate tops the list as the highest-calorie festive drink from a high street coffee chain.
The indulgent hot chocolate, which is flavoured with ‘sweet and zesty orange’ and comes topped with whipped cream, chocolate sauce and cocoa powder, has a staggering 466 calories per serving.
This is equivalent to nearly a quarter of the daily recommended calorie intake for an average woman, or almost 20 per cent of the daily recommended calorie intake for a man.
A single cup of Orange Hot Chocolate contains 23.8g of fat and 45.1g of sugar, which is 50 per cent more than the NHS recommends in a day and 10g more than a can of full sugar Coca-Cola.
Shockingly, this isn’t even as much sugar as there is in a cup of Pret a Manger’s new Frosted Mint Chocolate, which isn’t far behind as the second most calorific high street drink.
This hot chocolate comes with a ‘minty twist’ and a swirl of whipped cream on top – as well as a jaw-dropping 437 calories per serving.
Customers will be guzzling 21g of fat and 46.3g of sugar with each cup of Pret a Manger’s Frosted Mint Chocolate.
Rounding up the top three most calorific festive drinks is Caffe Nero once again with their new Millionaire’s Hot Chocolate, which has 424 calories.
While it sounds delicious, flavoured with salted caramel and topped with chocolate cream and caramel sauce, it contains 16.9g of fat and a whopping 48.8g of sugar, surpassing both the Orange Hot Chocolate and the Frosted Mint Hot Chocolate for sugar content.
Fans of a gingerbread latte will be pleased to know that most high street coffee chains serve some iteration of the drink.
Of all the gingerbread lattes out there, the culprit with the highest number of calories comes from Black Sheep Coffee.
Caffe Nero’s Orange Hot Chocolate drink, launched as part of its festive menu, contains a staggering amount of calories
Shockingly, two of Caffe Nero’s festive drinks makes it into the top three most calorific Christmas drinks from high street coffee chains
Their Gingerbread Latte offering has 354 calories, with 34.3g of sugar and 17.8g of fat.
Elsewhere, Pret a Manger’s gingerbread latte serves up 335 calories, while Caffe Nero’s has 324 calories.
The high street chain serving up the lowest-calorie gingerbread latte is Costa, whose medium-sized drink has 254 calories – a not-insignificant amount.
Nutrition expert Alison Bladh told the Daily Mail that these drinks are particularly dangerous as they have an ‘astonishing amount of hidden sugar’
‘They’re marketed as harmless seasonal treats or cosy pick-me-ups, when in reality they behave more like liquid desserts.’
Alison added that, because so many of these drinks are coffee- or tea-based, it has normalised the idea of ‘having what is essentially a dessert for breakfast’.
‘Because they’re quick to drink, they don’t fill you up and contain more sugar than a can of cola, so it’s very easy to consume excessive amounts without realising.
‘Most people would never consciously eat that much sugar in one go, yet they sip it down without a second thought.’
It comes as Chancellor Rachel Reeves is reportedly preparing to announce a ‘milkshake tax’ in her upcoming budget, which would see milk-based and milk-substitute drinks included in the Soft Drinks Industry Levy.
The tax was introduced in 2018 on added sugar soft drinks, and currently requires soft drink companies to pay a minimum of 18p per litre on soft drinks that contain 5g or more of sugar per 100ml.
While the Chancellor is expected to lower the sugar level from 5g to 4g, imposing the tax on milk-based and milk-substitute drinks could mean pre-packaged drinks from popular high street chains like Starbucks and Costa will become more expensive.
Drinks made in cafes and coffee shops will not be affected by the sugar tax, but canned and bottled coffees sold in shops will be hit.
