On Sunday, August 26th, a Utah Starbucks customer was hospitalized after receiving a tainted Frappuccino. Deniece Lee had ordered a green tea Frapp from a Starbucks located inside her local Smith’s grocery store. After the first one was made incorrectly, Lee settled on the second drink even though it tasted “off.”
“My last drink of it, it just tasted like burnt rubber, honestly,” Lee told her local Fox news affiliate Fox 13.
When Lee returned home, her kids alerted her to something strange in the bottom of her cup. “My kids came out running saying ‘Mom, I think there’s pills…on the bottom of your drink,'” Lee recalled to Fox 13.
Nervous, Lee recorded herself dumping out the remainder of her green tea Frappuccino on her front lawn. Sure enough, Lee found two white tablets fizzing below the ice. She posted the video to Facebook, where it has been viewed over 27,000 times and shared by over 140 users.
Lee contacted her friend who works at a different Starbucks location to ask if she knew what the tablets were. Her friend consulted her manager and told Lee the tabs are used to clean the espresso machines. She then advised Lee to go to the hospital.
Upon her admittance to the ER, Lee began vomiting.
Fox 13 reached out to Starbucks for a response. A spokesperson told the news station, “Smith’s store director and our customer service team have apologized to the customer directly for the mistake and worked to assure her of our commitment to make this right.”
“This mistake should never have been made and both Starbucks and Smith’s are working together to understand how this happened and to remind associates of our cleaning procedures designed to help prevent this type of situation.”
Lee told Fox 13, “I honestly think it was an honest mistake. I would hope it’s an honest mistake. I really just don’t ever want it to happen to anyone else.”
It does sound like it was an honest mistake. But we’ve learned our lesson — if your Frappuccino tastes off, you might want to investigate.
