Starbucks tea is served under the chain's Teavana brand, and it spans three families: hot brewed teas, iced teas, and tea lattes. That one label covers everything from a delicate Emperor's Clouds & Mist green tea and a Royal English Breakfast black to the fan-favorite Chai Tea Latte, the Earl Grey-based London Fog, a Matcha Latte, herbal cups like Mint Majesty and Peach Tranquility, and the wellness-famous Honey Citrus Mint, better known as the "Medicine Ball." Here is how the whole tea menu is built, and how to recreate the highlights at home.
What "Starbucks tea" actually means
When people say Starbucks tea, they almost always mean Teavana. Starbucks bought the Teavana chain in 2012 and, after closing its standalone mall shops, folded the brand into its cafes as the house tea line. So the tea you order at the counter is Teavana tea: full-leaf blends packed into pyramid sachets, brewed to order rather than poured from a big urn.
That Starbucks Teavana range breaks down into black teas, green teas, and caffeine-free herbal blends, plus a handful of matcha and chai products that get whisked or mixed into lattes. Understanding those three buckets — black, green, herbal — is the fastest way to read the menu, because it tells you roughly how much caffeine you are getting and whether the cup will taste brisk, grassy, or fruity and soothing.
The hot teas: Teavana sachets brewed to order
Hot Teavana teas are the simplest thing on the board. A barista drops one sachet into a cup, adds hot water, and lets it steep for a few minutes before you add anything you like. The core lineup usually includes:
- Emperor's Clouds & Mist — a smooth, lightly sweet green tea; the everyday green option.
- Royal English Breakfast — a robust, malty black tea that stands up to milk.
- Earl Grey — black tea scented with bergamot; the base of the London Fog latte below.
- Mint Majesty — a caffeine-free herbal blend of spearmint and peppermint with a touch of lemon verbena. Some people search for it as "majestic mint tea," but the real name is Mint Majesty tea.
- Peach Tranquility — a caffeine-free herbal infusion of peach, candied pineapple, chamomile, and lemongrass; naturally sweet with no added sugar.
- Chamomile blend — a soft, floral herbal cup that is a common evening pick.
Because these are steeped from full-leaf sachets, you control the strength: ask for a second sachet if you like it stronger, or a longer steep. Black blends carry the most caffeine, greens sit in the middle, and the herbal teas (Mint Majesty, Peach Tranquility, chamomile) are caffeine-free, which is why they dominate the after-dinner and kid-friendly orders. Add a pump of classic or honey syrup, a splash of milk, or a squeeze of lemon to finish.
The iced teas: shaken, sweetened, and "-ade" versions
Every hot tea has a cold twin. The signature iced options are Iced Black Tea, Iced Green Tea, and Iced Passion Tango Tea — the last a vivid magenta, caffeine-free hibiscus blend with lemongrass and apple that tastes tart and fruity. Baristas shake the brewed tea hard with ice to chill and lightly foam it.
By default, iced teas come lightly sweetened with classic syrup — the number of pumps scales with cup size. Prefer it bracing? Order it unsweetened, or ask for fewer pumps. The other big variable is what you cut the tea with: swap some of the water for lemonade and you get the popular "-ade" drinks, such as the Iced Passion Tango Tea Lemonade, Iced Black Tea Lemonade, and Iced Green Tea Lemonade. It is the cafe cousin of a classic half-tea, half-lemonade cooler. If you would rather build a pitcher at home, our guide to how to make iced tea walks through the brew-and-chill method.
The tea lattes: chai, London Fog, and matcha
Tea lattes are where Starbucks tea drinks get creamy. Three anchor the menu:
Chai Tea Latte
The Starbucks Chai Tea Latte is made from a spiced black-tea concentrate mixed with steamed milk, so it arrives sweet and warming with notes of cinnamon, cardamom, clove, and black pepper. It is one of the most-ordered tea drinks in the cafe and comes iced, too. For the full picture of what the style is and how it differs from a from-scratch cup, see what a chai latte is.
London Fog
The London Fog is an Earl Grey tea latte: Earl Grey steeped strong, then combined with steamed milk and vanilla syrup for a mellow, bergamot-and-vanilla cup. It is the gateway drink for people who find coffee lattes too intense.
Matcha Latte
The Matcha Latte whisks sweetened matcha blend with milk, hot or iced. Because Starbucks builds several drinks on that same green powder, we cover the whole family separately in the Starbucks matcha drinks guide.
The Medicine Ball: Honey Citrus Mint
No Starbucks tea rundown is complete without the "Medicine Ball," officially the Honey Citrus Mint. It started as an off-menu cold-and-flu order customers invented, then became a permanent order. It layers a Jade Citrus Mint sachet and a Peach Tranquility sachet in one cup, tops them with hot water and steamed lemonade, and finishes with honey. The result is soothing, tart, and minty — the drink people reach for with a scratchy throat, though it is a comfort cup, not a medicine.
Starbucks tea drinks at a glance
| Starbucks tea | What it is | Hot or iced |
|---|---|---|
| Emperor's Clouds & Mist | Everyday green tea sachet | Hot (or iced green) |
| Royal English Breakfast | Robust black tea sachet | Hot (or iced black) |
| Earl Grey | Black tea scented with bergamot | Hot |
| Mint Majesty | Caffeine-free spearmint & peppermint herbal | Hot |
| Peach Tranquility | Caffeine-free peach-chamomile herbal | Hot |
| Iced Passion Tango Tea | Caffeine-free hibiscus & lemongrass blend | Iced |
| Passion Tango / Black / Green "-ade" | Iced tea cut with lemonade | Iced |
| Chai Tea Latte | Spiced black-tea concentrate + steamed milk | Hot or iced |
| London Fog | Earl Grey tea latte with vanilla | Hot or iced |
| Matcha Latte | Sweetened matcha whisked with milk | Hot or iced |
| Honey Citrus Mint (Medicine Ball) | Jade Citrus Mint + Peach Tranquility + steamed lemonade + honey | Hot |
How to order and recreate Starbucks tea at home
Ordering is easier once you know the levers: pick a tea, pick hot or iced, then dial the sweetness (number of pumps, or unsweetened), the liquid (water, lemonade, or a water-lemonade split), and whether you want milk. A hot tea plus a splash of steamed milk and one pump of vanilla is, essentially, a homemade London Fog.
Recreating these is genuinely simple, because there is no espresso machine involved:
- Hot tea: steep one full-leaf sachet or a heaping teaspoon of loose tea in about 8 oz of hot water for 3–5 minutes.
- Tea latte: steep the tea strong (double up the sachet), then top with steamed or frothed milk and a small amount of syrup — vanilla for a London Fog, a spiced chai concentrate for a chai latte.
- Iced tea: brew double-strength, sweeten while warm if you want it sweet, then pour over plenty of ice; add lemonade for an "-ade."
- Medicine Ball copycat: combine a mint tea bag and a peach-chamomile tea bag, add hot water and warm lemonade, and stir in honey.
Want the espresso side of the board or the seasonal specials next to these teas? Our Starbucks drinks menu guide maps the full cafe lineup.
The bottom line
Starbucks tea is really the Teavana tea line dressed up three ways — steeped hot, shaken over ice, or blended into a latte — with a few icons (the Chai Tea Latte, the London Fog, and the Honey Citrus Mint) that have earned cult status. Once you can read the black-green-herbal buckets and the sweeten-and-dilute levers, the whole tea menu opens up, and most of it is easy to rebuild in your own kitchen with a kettle and a couple of sachets.