Tea From Starbucks: Hot Tea Menu With Caffeine Guide

The lineup sorts neatly by how the leaves are grown and processed. Black tea is the strongest and has the most caffeine. Green tea is lighter. Herbal blends are made from flowers, leaves and fruit, so they do not use the tea plant at all.

Knowing the type tells you most of what you need. A black tea can handle milk and honey. A green tea tastes best plain. An herbal tea works at night.

Starbucks Earl Grey Tea and Royal English Breakfast

Black teas are the backbone of the hot tea list, and these two are the only ones in it.

This one starts with a strong black tea base and adds bergamot, a citrus fruit with subtle lemon and floral lavender notes, per the menu description. You taste the citrus first, then the tea. It is the one to choose if you want a tea that smells as good as it tastes.

Royal English Breakfast is the classic morning black tea. The menu calls it a beloved morning tea made from high-grown full leaves, with some complexity in each sip. It is the plainer of the two, with no added flavor, which makes it the better pick when you plan to add milk.

Both are the strongest teas on the list. A published caffeine guide gives each about 40 mg in a tall and about 80 mg in a grande.

A simple pairing rule: milk and honey suit Royal English Breakfast. A slice of lemon suits Earl Grey better than milk, though many people add milk anyway.

Starbucks Green Tea: Emperor's Clouds & Mist

The green tea here is Emperor's Clouds & Mist. The menu describes it as a gently smoky, softly sweet green tea cultivated at 3,500 feet and shrouded in clouds and mist.

In the cup it is light and a little toasty, with none of the grassy bitterness some green teas have. It is the right choice when black tea feels too heavy but you still want some caffeine.

Caffeine is low. A published guide lists 0 to 15 mg in a tall and 15 to 25 mg in a grande, so it sits well below the black teas.

Chamomile Mint Blossom is sold as a green tea blend with chamomile, rose hips and spearmint, balanced by light citrus and fruit, per the menu. No published caffeine figure turned up for it, so check the app if you need a number.

If you are after a matcha latte instead of a steeped green tea, the matcha tea lattes page covers those.

Mint Majesty Starbucks Herbal Tea and Chamomile Mint Blossom

Mint Majesty is the one tea on the list described as a caffeine-free herbal tea. The menu says it is a blend of mint and a pinch of lemon verbena. The taste is cool, fresh and a little sweet.

A published guide lists 0 mg in every size. That makes it the easy choice after dinner, before bed or whenever you want a hot drink without caffeine.

Chamomile Mint Blossom is the softer cousin. It is floral, mild and gently minty. Because it is sold as a green tea blend, it is not the same as a fully caffeine-free herbal, so treat the two as different choices.

If you want a hot drink with no caffeine at all, pick Mint Majesty first.

This green tea appears in the drink many people call the Medicine Ball. On the menu that drink is named Honey Citrus Mint Tea, and Starbucks describes it as a customer creation so popular it is now on the menu.

The menu describes it as green tea with soothing herbal notes of chamomile and hints of spearmint and fruit flavor, served with steamed lemonade and a touch of honey. The result is sweet, warm, citrusy and minty, closer to a soothing drink than to a tea.

Caffeine in the Jade Citrus Mint bag is modest. A published guide lists 15 to 25 mg in a tall and 40 mg in a grande. Honey Citrus Mint Tea starts at $4.75 on the delivery app.

Two things to know before you order:

• The Medicine Ball is a nickname. Say Honey Citrus Mint Tea at the counter and you will get the same drink.
• The bags used in a recipe can change, so a Medicine Ball made from different tea bags can taste a little different.

For the full build and its history, read how the Medicine Ball tea is built.

The London Fog is a tea latte, made by blending Earl Grey with steamed milk and vanilla syrup. The menu describes it as a bright, citrusy spark of Italian bergamot blended with subtle hints of lavender, vanilla syrup and steamed milk. It calls the drink a frothy reinvention of classic Earl Grey tea.

That makes it a sweeter, creamier take on Earl Grey. It starts at $5.65 on the delivery app.

How is it different from a chai latte? A chai latte is built on spiced black tea with cinnamon, clove and other warming spices. A London Fog is built on citrusy bergamot tea with vanilla. One tastes of spice. The other tastes of citrus and cream. The chai latte guide explains the spiced side.

You can order it iced, change the milk to a plant milk or ask for less syrup to cut the sugar. Less syrup is the simplest swap for a lighter London Fog, and the iced version swaps the steamed milk for cold milk poured over ice, so it drinks like a creamy iced tea. Because the vanilla syrup carries the sweetness, a London Fog tastes noticeably sweeter than any brewed tea on the list.

The caffeine comes from the Earl Grey tea, so expect a figure in the same range as a cup of Earl Grey. No published number for the latte itself turned up, so treat that as an estimate.

Caffeine in Starbucks tea ranges from none to about 80 mg in a grande. Black teas have the most, green teas are in the middle and herbal teas have none.

The figures below come from a published caffeine guide. They can differ from the Starbucks app, and brewing time changes caffeine, so treat them as a guide and not a promise.

London Fog and Chamomile Mint Blossom were not in the guide, so no number is shown for them. The London Fog uses Earl Grey, so it will land near the Earl Grey range.

For comparison, a grande Pike Place brewed coffee lists 310 mg in the same guide. Even the strongest tea has far less caffeine than a coffee. If you want to see how the sizes work, the page on cup sizes for hot drinks shows the ounces behind each one.

Longer steeping pulls more caffeine out of the leaves. If you want a milder cup, take the bag out early. Size matters less than you might expect: the grande and venti rows match in the table because both cups use the same number of bags, so the venti is simply more water and the same strength.

When you have a cold, the best hot tea is the one that feels good to drink. Warm liquid, mint, citrus and honey are the usual comfort picks, and none of this is medical advice.

The Honey Citrus Mint Tea fits that mood because it combines mint, lemon and honey in one cup. Mint Majesty is a simple second choice with no caffeine.

For the story behind the most popular cold-day order, see the Medicine Ball page linked above.

Starbucks Hot Tea for Sore Throat: Practical Orders

A tea order for a sore throat is really a comfort order, not a treatment. These are easy to ask for:

• Honey Citrus Mint Tea, which already includes steamed lemonade and honey.
• Mint Majesty with honey added at the counter.
• Any brewed tea with a splash of steamed lemonade, if your store will do it.

Ask your barista what is in stock. Honey and lemonade are easy for most stores to supply.

Starbucks Hot Tea Decaf and Caffeine-Free Options

If you want a decaf-style cup, Mint Majesty is the clear answer. It is an herbal blend, so it has no caffeine to remove in the first place. Published guides list it at 0 mg.

A true decaf black tea bag is a different matter. No decaf tea bag appears on the menu data, so ask at your store instead of assuming. Naturally low caffeine is not the same as decaf. Emperor's Clouds & Mist is low in caffeine but not free of it.

Most changes to a hot tea are simple. Ask for honey, a splash of milk, a sweetener or an extra tea bag. A brewed tea is unsweetened until you add something.

Sweetness works in two ways. You can add classic syrup, or you can ask for honey, which is already part of the Honey Citrus Mint Tea. Honey tastes richer and suits mint and green teas. Syrup is neutral. The page on syrups and sweeteners you can add lists the options.

Milk matters most for the London Fog, where it is part of the recipe. You can switch to a plant milk, and the foam will be a little different.

An extra tea bag makes a stronger cup, and it raises caffeine slightly in the black teas. Bag counts change with the cup. Barista guides commonly list one bag in a short or tall and two bags in a grande or venti, though stores can vary.

If your size comes with one bag, you can ask for a second one on the side for a small charge. In a two-bag cup, ask for "one in, one out," and you get one steeping and one to add later. That gives you control over strength without over-steeping the first bag.

Dining in has a perk too. Since early 2025, anyone who orders a hot or iced brewed tea to drink in the cafe can get a free refill during the same visit, as long as it was served in a mug, glass or your own clean cup. Tea lattes like the London Fog do not count.

Any of these changes can add a small charge, depending on your store.