Starbucks Iced Chai Latte

The Starbucks Iced Chai Latte costs £5.30 for a Tall and carries 180 calories in a Grande, with 52.4mg of caffeine that comes from black tea rather than coffee. Spiced chai concentrate is mixed with cold milk over ice, built on cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper and star anise.

Star anise is the difference between this and the hot version, and it shows more when cold. Its liquorice note sits at the back and lingers after the cinnamon has faded, which gives the iced drink a longer finish than the hot one has. Cold also sharpens the black pepper. The concentrate arrives pre sweetened, so the drink tastes considerably sweeter than a chai brewed from whole spices, and milk carries all of it evenly through the glass rather than letting the spice settle.

Sugar is 29.2g in a Grande out of 29.3g of carbohydrate, so the carbohydrate count is sugar and almost nothing else. Calories run 132 in a Tall, 180 in a Grande and 209 in a Venti. Caffeine climbs with the cup from 39.3mg to 65.5mg because more concentrate means more tea, which puts a Grande at roughly a third of a Grande Caffè Latte.

Spice reads differently cold, and that is worth expecting rather than being surprised by. Warmth lifts the volatile aromatics in cinnamon and cardamom so a hot chai smells strong before you taste it; over ice most of that never reaches your nose and the flavour arrives entirely on the tongue. The result tastes flatter at first and then longer, with the pepper and star anise holding well after the sweetness has gone.

Fewer pumps of concentrate is the only way to cut the sugar and it thins the spice at the same time, so a Tall is usually the better answer than a weakened Grande. A shot of espresso on top makes a dirty chai at around 140mg of caffeine, which every UK store will make without it being on the board. The Chai Latte is the hot version, and the Iced Caffè Latte is where to go for coffee instead of tea.