Starbucks Peach Iced Tea

Starbucks Peach Iced Tea costs £5.30 for a Tall and carries 72 calories in a Grande. Peach syrup and lemonade are combined and served over ice, which makes it closer to a soft drink than to a cup of tea with fruit in it.

The lemonade is what most people miss reading the name. It brings a citric sharpness that stops the peach syrup reading as pure sugar, and the tea underneath is there for body and a faint tannic grip rather than for flavour. Cold and shaken with ice, the whole thing comes out bright and slightly fizzy in the mouth without being carbonated. Peach reads as tinned rather than fresh, which suits the drink better than a fresher note would.

Sugar is 16.9g in a Grande out of 17.3g of carbohydrate, so almost the entire carbohydrate load is sugar. Calories run 51 in a Tall, 72 in a Grande and 82 in a Venti, which keeps it well below any milk based cold drink on the menu. Caffeine is negligible on the published figures at 1mg in a Grande.

Shaken to order is the part that separates it from a jug drink. A store shakes each one with fresh ice rather than pouring from a batch, which aerates the lemonade slightly and gives the drink a lift it loses within a couple of minutes of standing. That is also why one made at the counter tastes better than the same drink left on a collection shelf, and why it is worth drinking promptly rather than carrying it far.

Fewer pumps of peach syrup is the standard cut and it works well here, because the lemonade carries enough of its own character to hold the drink together at half strength. It is the most ordered iced tea in UK stores through summer and it comes shaken to order rather than poured from a jug. The Iced Green Tea is the unsweetened alternative at zero calories, and the Cool Lime Refresha is the sharper fruit option at 69 calories.