Readers’ pick: Compass Coffee’s Cherry Blossom Cream Cold Brew
A wise woman named Dua Lipa once said one kiss is all it takes to fall in love, but a single sip of Compass Coffee’s Cherry Blossom Cream Cold Brew is enough to break any coffee lover’s heart.
With locations stretching across Georgetown, Rosslyn and Downtown D.C., the District-based chain has 23 locations around the D.C. region, offering GW students dozens of opportunities to get their caffeine fix. Despite Compass’ Matcha Latte being a reliable menu option, the sour aftertaste of sipping on the chain’s Cherry Blossom Cream Cold Brew will leave you wishing you had stuck to a trusty, on-campus Peet’s visit.
Compass Coffee’s menu boasts enticing, floral-based spring syrups like cherry blossom and lavender, adding a vibrant twist to your brew — along with a Bitcoin blend, a “vibrant and caramelly” collaboration with the Embassy of El Salvador crafted to celebrate the country’s adoption of Bitcoin. Yet their rumored packing of their stores with anti-union employees as workers attempt to unionize smells as rotten as a corpse flower in full bloom at the U.S. Botanic Garden.
The Cherry Blossom Cream Cold Brew ($6.50) arrives as an electric shade of pink definitely not found in nature, and with only a thin layer of light pink foam floating on top — disheartening for a coffee labeled as a cream cold brew. Compass Coffee doesn’t skimp on the ice, either, leaving disappointingly little room for coffee despite its nearly $7 price tag.
The presentation of the drink is unfortunately the best part of the experience. Between the too-sweet notes of cherry blossom syrup dominating the bitter cold brew and the rapidly melting ice watering the drink down, the cold brew ends up mostly tasting like sugar-flavored water instead of smooth coffee mingled with hints of cherry blossoms. Calling the drink a cherry blossom cold brew is also misleading, as the syrup mostly tastes like artificial cherries, not anything rosy or blossom-like — though Compass Coffee states their syrup has floral notes.
To make a bad experience worse, when I first had the drink two years ago, the pink color of the syrup stuck with me long after I chucked the cold brew in the trash, making a concerning reappearance when I went to the bathroom later that day. Thankfully, the cold brew doesn’t seem to have caused long-term health concerns, but I cannot endorse a drink filled with dye that can apparently survive a start-to-finish ride through a digestive tract.
Ultimately, the mingling of cherry blossom syrup and cold brew doesn’t work in this drink — or in the human body. If you chose to order it yourself, make sure to snap a good picture of the cold brew to bait others on your Instagram story. That’s all this beverage is good for.
