Get Your Cookie and Coffee Fix at CBD Newbie Cocoro

Your sweet tooth should take heed: Cocoro's offerings are about as sugary as they come.

The recently opened Jianwai Soho café's cookies and some of their coffees serve as mini desserts that will rev up your palate. Chief among them: the RMB 25 strawberry latte (pictured in the lead image above). Featuring freshly ground coffee, a special brand of milk called 味全 (wei quan) –  only available for commercial use and only kept for ten days, ensuring it's used while still impeccably fresh – a splash of vanilla and some strawberry syrup, this fruity, ever so sweet beverage is perfectly suited for dessert lovers, though anyone falling short of that category will find it too syrupy and overpowering for their tastebuds (as the glucose conscientious pal I had in tow griped).

The other coffees here are more conventional: caramel, hazelnut and vanilla lattes (RMB 26), along with espressos, Americanos, cappuccinos, flat whites and more (falling in the quite reasonable range of RMB 16-26).

Then there are the cookies, which are scrumptiously satisfying, albeit bite-sized. At RMB 20 each they're a bit steep, considering their tininess, but the strawberry, double chocolate chunk and white chocolate chunk varieties all boasted chewy textures and flavor. I didn't like the matcha option, however – it had a chalky texture and a serious lack of flavor.

Another drawback is this cafe's shoebox-small floor space. That makes it suited for grab-and-go orders, but considering the number of cafés popping up all over Beijing with welcoming atmospheres and creative designs, many patrons might skip over Cocoro in favor of comfy, wifi-providing alternatives where they can get some work done. CBD worker bees craving a sugar rush on their way to and from the office could do worse than this modest new café, thanks to some of its creatively flavorful menu items.

Cocoro
Daily, 8am-8pm. 0832D, Bldg 8, Jianwai SOHO East, Chaoyang
朝阳区建外SOHO东区8号楼0832D

Photos: Kyle Mullin, Cocoro