• by Nina Lentini  @Nina_Lentini, April 4, 2007

Starbucks yesterday launched a new line of flavored coffee with a PR effort that included a four-hour outdoor Latin American Coffee Festival in Coral Gables, Fla., home of that state's first Starbucks store, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

Celebrity chef and TV personality Aarón Sanchez, who is Mexican-American, provided a cooking demo while Starbucks Hear Music debut and Brazilian artist and Latin Grammy-nominated singer CéU performed.

Across the nation and in Canada, the world's largest coffeehouse chain began offering Latin American coffees, espresso beverages, pastries, music, and merchandise inspired by the culture of Latin America and including indulgent dulce de leche beverages and baked goods, mango pineapple empanadas, and colorful Costa Rican art and ceramics.

The Latin American flavor line is a new product for spring, said a Starbucks spokesperson. "We work a lot with and are closely connected to the Latin American community," she said. "After all, we purchase about 75 percent of our coffee from that part of the world."

This first integrated campaign centered on Latin America focuses on dulce de leche or "milk candy," which Starbucks uses in new latte and Frappuccino blends as well as in its Reduced Fat Banana Dulce Coffeecake. Other coffee flavors in this line include Costa Rica Tarrazú and--back by popular demand--Brazil Ipanema Bourbon.

The company also is selling a limited number of paintings done by Costa Rican artist Eloy Zuñigas and coffee mugs hand-painted by Cecilia Facio de Figueres, also of Costa Rica.