Why Starbucks Baristas Hate Making Iced Green Tea Lattes

Among all the drinks on the Starbucks menu, both official and secret, some are less favored by the baristas that have to make them. One such drink is the iced green tea latte, a variation of a hot green tea latte. While the hot version is made with stirring matcha powder (a type of green tea) with steamed milk for a creamy experience, ordering the drink iced requires it to be shaken.

As you can imagine, shaking the drink's components together doesn't work as seamlessly as whisking or frothing. Moreover, the heat of a hot drink dissolves powders more readily than a cold drink, meaning your iced green tea latte is more likely to be clumpy because the powder hasn't fully incorporated into the milk.

The situation worsens when a customer orders their iced green tea latte without ice. When the cup has ice, there is at least something to help mix the ingredients together, but without ice, the green tea and milk just slosh around, unevenly dispersed, if at all. While this may result in an inconsistently textured drink for you, it's also a source of frustration for your barista as they strive to make the best drink possible.

To be clear, a clumpy iced green tea latte is not necessarily the fault of your Starbucks barista; it's most likely due to the aforementioned issue with cold drinks and powders. That being said, you might be able to minimize green tea powder clumps by altering your request.

Starbucks baristas are instructed to shake the green tea powder, milk, and ice together, which doesn't always fully mix. However, you may ask your barista to mix your green tea and milk in the cold foam blender before pouring it over ice. By following this method, any clumps in the drink are more likely to be blended out before coming into contact with the ice.

Alternatively, you can order a hot green tea latte with a cup of ice on the side. The heat will help your drink mix fully, and then you can pour it over the ice for a cold drink. Even better, you get more of your drink when ordering it with ice on  the side, as ordering with ice inside takes up cup space and leaves you with less of the actual drink.

As you can imagine, the clump-prone iced green tea latte isn't the only drink that Starbucks baristas may not enjoy making. Many baristas also harbor a secret disdain of Frappuccinos, due to the drink's complexity — a scoop of this, a pump of that, blending, pouring, etc. Then, because Frappuccinos are so thick, they tend to make a mess as they're transferred into a cup, requiring the barista to take additional time to clean up, as well as cleaning the blender.

Another highly disliked Starbucks order is anything that's customized to the extreme. It's one thing to add sweet cold foam to your Refresher or to request a different kind of milk, but your barista might roll their eyes when you ask for a dozen extra pumps of syrup and temp of 152 degrees Fahrenheit. Likewise, baristas don't like when customers ask for a secret menu item by name, expecting them to know exactly how to make it. This isn't to say you can't order a secret menu item, but you should have the recipe on hand to help the barista out.