Audrey Lincoff, a spokeswoman for world's largest specialty coffee retailer, said the company will start selling two new chocolate drinks in mid-February, but would not provide any further details Wednesday.

Some have complained that Chantico (pronounced chan-TEE-ko) is so rich it almost tastes like a melted chocolate bar, or as one anonymous barista phrased it on a Starbucks gossip Web log: "chocolate flavored lard in a cup."

Lincoff said she hasn't heard such complaints and insists it's attracted a loyal following in many markets.

She said the company is working to respond to customers' pleas that they be able to customize the drink - say, by adding a shot of espresso or a dash of hazelnut syrup. She conceded that some baristas already fulfill such requests.

"We don't see it as a failure," Lincoff said. "We see it as an opportunity to leverage what we've learned from our customers to provide chocolate beverages that we're going to be excited about."

Named for the Aztec goddess of home and hearth, Chantico has a whopping 390 calories per 6 oz. serving, 190 of them from fat. That's considerably more than a Hershey milk chocolate bar, which, at about an ounce and a half, has 230 calories, 120 of them from fat.

Starbucks does not release sales figures on individual drinks, but Lincoff characterized Chantico as a commercial success. "We've been very pleased with the results," she said.

Starbucks shuffles items on and off its menu seasonally, but that's not what's happening with Chantico, which was introduced as a year-round drink when Starbucks first started offering it in early January.

Dan Geiman, a Seattle-based McAdams Wright Ragen analyst who follows Starbucks, said it clearly hasn't lived up to the company's expectations.

Geiman first tried Chantico at an October 2004 analysts meeting where, amid much fanfare, the company announced its plans to launch the drink.

"I thought it was fine, but you drink a couple sips of it and it's really about all you need," he said. "It was so rich and so thick, they maybe overdid it in that respect."

Still, Geiman characterized Chantico as a rare flop for a company that usually does a good job predicting what its customers will like. "They don't have many misses," he said. "Most of the products they introduce do quite well."

Shares of Starbucks closed up a penny at $30.56 Wednesday on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The stock has traded between $22.29 and $32.46 a share in the past 52 weeks.