Starbucks Baristas Are Celebrating The Possible Demise Of The 'Battery Acid' Refresher

When the insult smiths of Reddit decided to compare Starbucks' Kiwi Starfruit Refresher to "battery acid," they arguably stumbled onto some cosmically – or at least comically – strong connection between kiwifruits and batteries. According to Starbucks' website, the drink not only contains "Starfruit- and kiwi-flavored juice" but also "real kiwi fruit pieces." A Lemonade version exists as well. And as Panasonic observes, much like lemons, the acidity of kiwis produces enough juice for it to serve as an "electrolyte cell" battery. But it goes deeper.

The brand KIWI design sells rechargeable batteries (via Amazon). And if all that wasn't enough to convince you that the universe is playing Six Degrees of Kiwi Batteries, a Redditor once compared Eminem's head to a kiwi. That's the same Eminem who proclaimed in a freestyle, "I'm battery acid, dawg" (via Genius) and successfully sued New Zealand's National Party for hundreds of thousands of dollars after it made a track called "Eminem Esque" that sounded entirely too much like the song "Lose Yourself." (And what are New Zealanders called? Kiwis.) 

Plus, a barista on Reddit asserted, "As someone who accidentally ingested battery acid when I was a kid, I can confirm that [the Kiwi Starfruit Refresher tastes like battery acid]." A few folks found the smell odious, even "medicine"-like. Workers claimed it stained containers. For some reason, a number of baristas believe the "Battery Acid" Refresher is departing and are giddily dancing on its potential grave.

The gravedancing came photographically close to being literal. Redditor mulderufo13, posted an image of people happily gathered around a headstone. Inserted text identified the deceased as the "Kiwi Refresher" while a joyous funeral goer crouching over the burial plot was labeled "Every barista." The post unapologetically declared, "Bye battery acid refresher you will not be missed."

In a separate thread, a userpantsylburbia said, "Kiwi is gone" and exclaimed, "the Battery Acid Special is no more!" Another commenter recommended destroying the pitchers used for the allegedly belated Refresher. Currently, the Starbucks website still lists the Refresher, so it's unclear what is driving the impression that the drink is going to beverage heaven while folks tell it to go to hell. But if they're right, they're happy about it.

At least one Starbucks customer seemed pleased with the item's possible exit: "good riddance. the worst drink ive ever tasted." But a number of customers expressed dismay because they liked the drink. Presumably, they found it refreshing – or, in other words, it recharged their batteries. Even a barista mourned it, moaning, "NO ME TOO. i single-handedly went through our kiwi supply with my daily star drink." Perhaps for them, the Kiwi Starfruit Refresher had a bad rap. So even though - to channel Eminem - some might lose themselves in the grave dancy party if it is true that Kiwi Starfruit's close to postmortem, not everyone would find that news electrifying.