Starbucks Coffee Mints

Mints that make Altoids taste like watered-down certs. They are deceptivley small, about fifty fit in a tin the size of a matchbox. Beware, these are nuclear mints, so strong that they border on torture. Although despite the marketing around them I have found that the flavor and scent does not linger on much after they are gone (a quality I look for in a good mint "how long does my breath stay minty fresh after it's gone").

As a bit of an addendum to LordOmar's writeup:
In my travels through high school, I occasionally stop by Starbucks (what can I say, it's the only decent place in town.. the donut shop has crap coffee) and pick up a beverage and some mints. Because of this, I must forego lunch later in the day; I don't think too much of this, as it's still early morning and I've just had a pop-tart.

Finally, lunch time rolls around, and I've got no money and am hungry.

"But wait! What's this? Ah, yes, I got some Starbucks mints! Perhaps those will tide me over 'till I get home.

Hmm... they're pretty small... I'd better eat three or four at once..."

crunch crunch crunch

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I found out that if you chew several at once, you can feel the minty-freshness in your nose.

It actually burns a little at first if you're not used to it.

This has been a public service announcement. Thank you for your time.

The official name for these mints is “Starbucks After-Coffee Mints”, despite the fact that the tin clearly displays no hyphen, and that everyone calls them Starbucks Coffee Mints.

These mints, as I just mentioned, come in a tin which is about 6cm long, 5cm wide and 1.5 cm deep with a hinged lid. You get about 100 mints in each tin.

Each mints is a little disc with a convex top and bottom, about 3mm high and 7mm wide, weighing in at 0.14g. Their teeny-tiny size makes their strength all the more surprising. And they are very strong, leaving your mouth feeling cold for about 15 minutes. Cold but not very minty, oddly. Eating 5-10 in a couple of minutes will make your mouth go really numb. A cruel person might tip an entire tin into somebody’s mouth and tape it closed, just to see what happens. Research is proceeding.

The one fault in these excellent mints is that they have a slightly metallic/chemical flavour if you eat enough of them. This makes sense if you look at the ingredients list:

Sorbitol, xylitol, peppermint oil, menthol, magnesium stearate, acesulfame potassium, aspartame.

See? Barely a natural product in there. Nice to see that it does use peppermint oil as a major ingredient though.

Starbucks Coffee Mints have the most amusing Nutritionial Information I have ever read:

Nutrition Facts: Serv. Size: 1 tablet (0.14g) Servings: 100. Amount per serving: Calories 0, Total Fat 0g (0% DV), Sodium 0mg (0% DV), Total Carb. 0g (0% DV), Sugars 0g, Sugar alc 0g, Protein 0g. Not a significant source of fat cal., sat. fat, fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium and iron. Percent Daily Values (DV) are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

According to that, they hardly exist at all!