8 Hacks You Need For Better Starbucks Lavender Drinks
Starbucks frequently offers seasonal flavors outside of its regular staples. This rotating menu keeps customers interested and draws new people through the doors with the promise of fun, tasty flavors. The spring 2024 Starbucks lavender lineup is one of these seasonal offerings -- but some fans want the beverages to stick around all year round. These drinks get their flavoring from lavender powder, which can be added to an array of caffeinated and noncaffeinated beverages, including an iced matcha with lavender cold foam, a lavender oat milk latte, and even a Frappuccino.
As a Starbucks barista, I've experienced the change in seasons and the resulting change in drinks. Each year, I hoped for something floral, like lavender powder, but I was never lucky enough to see it when I donned the green apron all that time ago. But now, as a customer rather than a barista, I have fallen head over heels for the lavender drinks and their bold lavender flavor. Since the release of this powder, I've stumbled across a few hacks that will help make your lavender drinks even better.
Read more: 26 Coffee Hacks You Need To Know For A Better Cup
Enhance Floral Drinks With Lavender Powder
Starbucks lavender powder pairs well with more than just coffee. You can easily use this powder to take your already floral beverages to a new level. A good start for a floral pairing is Passion Tango Tea or Passion Tango Tea Lemonade. These drinks feature an impressive array of tasty and herbaceous notes, thanks to an infusion of apple, licorice root, and lemongrass. The brand also uses hibiscus flowers for that bright pink color.
Since baristas prepare the Passion Tango Tea drinks by shaking the ingredients together, the lavender powder can break up finely and blend easily into the drink. Although it's not explicitly floral, the Strawberry A?aí Refresher also has a bit of that floral feel. Consider adding a couple of scoops of the lavender powder to your Pink Drink or berry-forward Refresher for a fresh spin on your usual beverage order.
Use The Powder As A Flavorful Sweetener For Your Tea
Passion Tango Tea isn't the only beverage lavender powder goes well with. Shaking it up with either green or black tea adds a delicious, floral alternative to the typical tea drinks Starbucks offers. Since the basic teas do not come with a default sweetener, you might choose to enhance them so that the beverage does not feel like you're simply drinking leaves and flowers.
When Starbucks first released its newest line of lavender drinks, it only included the Iced Lavender Oatmilk Latte and Iced Lavender Cream Oatmilk Matcha beverages. As customers have continued playing with the drinks, it's become clear that you can use the lavender powder to make some pretty stellar drinks outside of the explicitly floral ones. After the initial release of the first couple of drinks, Starbucks even started offering a chai with lavender foam on top. Although matcha is a perfect addition to lavender, it's far from the only tea you can pair with it.
Replace Whipped Cream With Lavender Cold Foam
Many Starbucks drinks, including iced, warm, and frozen ones, get a default whipped cream topping. To seamlessly integrate a lavender touch, switch out the whipped cream for lavender cold foam for your next one. This switch would work well for many Starbucks beverages, including iced lattes and Frappuccinos. Try adding a sprinkle of the powder to your next Chai Crème or Vanilla Bean Crème Frappuccino. Or, think sweet with strawberry drinks, like the Strawberry Crème Frappuccino.
Of course, coffee-based beverage pairings are also an option, but because lavender pairs best with floral flavors, we are reluctant to pair it with heavier, java-forward ones. If you're insistent on a coffee-based Frappuccino, try a sweet base rather than a bitter one. It's why we recommend ordering a white chocolate mocha with a lavender cold foam topping.
Alternatively, you can always add cold foam to chilled drinks that wouldn't usually have whipped cream. For example, we love adding cold foam to our shaken cold brew. However, the flavor of lavender on top of coffee might not be everyone's cup of joe, so proceed with caution.
Add More Scoops At No Extra Cost
If you add lavender powder to a beverage outside of the lineup, it will incur an additional charge. However, no matter how many scoops you add, the extra cost will remain the same. The same goes for drinks that already include lavender powder; you can add as many scoops as you want without being charged extra.
If you're really enjoying the floral flavor and want more of it, consider adding a few extra scoops to your beverage. But before you go overboard with the lavender powder, remember that the recipe is as it is for a reason -- and it generally has to do with the flavor and consistency of the concoction. We recommend ordering the beverage with the baseline amount of powder in it before you max out the number of scoops that you can order without getting a funny look from the barista.
Blend Matcha And Lavender Flavors Together
One of the best drinks the lavender lineup introduced was an iced matcha latte with lavender cold foam on top. In one sip, you get bold flavors of matcha and lavender. But they are a little separated, and there's not an even mix of both throughout the entirety of the drink. If, after tasting the matcha latte with lavender cold foam, you wish for a more cohesive drink that intertwines both flavors, consider ordering a Matcha Crème Frappuccino with extra scoops of lavender. This way, you'll combine both flavors when everything is blended.
The only downfall of this drink is that you'll lose the bright greenness of the matcha to the light purple color from the powder, which may make the drink look rather muddy or even unappealing -- even if the flavor is pretty great. You can also amp up the lavender flavor by replacing the whipped cream on top with the lavender cold foam.
Play With Lemonade
True Starbucks superfans will know that you can make any of the brand's teas into a tangy, summery beverage by replacing the water infusion with tangy lemonade. Then, to up the ante, consider adding lavender to those lemonades. It would be delicious in an Iced Matcha Lemonade, for example. Or, for something ultra-unique, order a Blended Strawberry Lemonade and ask for scoops of lavender powder.
Adding lavender to your lemonade drinks creates a new flavor that enhances the overall beverage. It helps balance out the super-sweet profile that's common with the fruit and definitely plays well with the tart, acidic components of the lemonade. If strawberry or matcha aren't your favorites, you could also ask for lavender powder shaken up with just straight lemonade. Whether you choose to go blended or unblended, we can assure you that this will be a tasty option to switch up your beverage routine.
Pay Attention To Secret Menu Creations
With every new flavor Starbucks releases, new secret menu options emerge. As soon as lavender powder became part of the seasonal menu, new secret menu options started flooding social media. People share their creations over Facebook groups, Instagram, and even videos on TikTok, with some baristas showing viewers how they make the beverages behind the counter.
One of the best places to learn about new drinks is by paying attention to these creative Starbucks customers who use lavender in new and inventive ways. We recommend seeking out some of the secret menu hashtags or even joining a few Starbucks Facebook groups that regularly share unique drinks with fun names that are considered secret menu offerings.
One of our favorite drinks that has risen to popularity thanks to TikTok is the Iced London Fog with lavender cold foam on top. This drink is a delicious way to change up a classic Starbucks beverage and utilize lavender cold foam.
Take Inspiration From Other Countries
We love taking delicious drinks from other countries and using them for inspiration. South Korea, for example, has a lavender drink called a Lavender café breve. It's made with lavender syrup, which is only found in Starbucks in South Korea, so this version will be admittedly very different from lavender beverages made with powder. However, you can get the same flavor of this beverage in the United States by ordering a latte made breve (made with half-and-half rather than milk) with lavender powder sprinkled in. The creaminess will mesh well with the floral undertones of the lavender and make for a satisfying beverage.
The drink won't have the same layered design as South Korea's beverage but will offer a similar herbaceous flavor. We recommend opting for a blonde-roast espresso over a signature one to ensure the lavender flavor shines through and that the mixture meshes well with the coffee's flavor.
Read the original article on Tasting Table.
