Swap In Apple Juice For A Sweeter Take On Starbucks' Tea-Lemonades

Though Starbucks got its start selling coffee, the chain has long since expanded its menu to include flavored lattes, blended drinks, and various teas. Each item can be ordered as is, or you can tailor drinks to your personal preferences, with more than 170,000 different combinations possible. As such, you can elevate Starbucks teas with lemonade, resulting in a black tea, green tea, peach green tea, matcha tea, or passion fruit tea-lemonade. Lemonade balances the tea's sweetness with a touch of tang, but this flavor combo isn't necessarily everyone's cup of tea.

For a similarly refreshing sip, you can instead request apple juice in your drink. Starbucks usually carries apple juice year-round, so there's no need to worry about this ingredient going out of season. Whereas lemonade sometimes adds an overpowering, mouth-puckering sourness to your drink, apple juice offers a delicate sweetness that keeps your tea tasting light. What's more, because this nostalgic fruit juice is nearly 90% water, it's a much more hydrating option than lemonade.

Whether you order a Starbucks tea-lemonade with its usual lemonade or with apple juice, you can change your drink game entirely by adding more ingredients. For instance, you can increase the sweetness of your drink with brown sugar, vanilla, or classic simple syrup (all available at Starbucks year-round). Depending on the season, you may also be able to add peppermint or peach syrup. Yum. While syrups like toffee nut or pumpkin spice might not do well in lemonade, they might be delicious in black tea apple juice.

Another easy way to zhuzh up your tea-lemonade is by requesting fruit inclusions or purees, or even the base from one of the other Starbucks lemonades -– mango, dragon fruit, or strawberry açai. These ingredients all bring varying levels of sweetness, as well as additional fruity flavors that can complement or create contrast with whichever tea you choose. Green tea-lemonade with mango base? Yes, please! Of course, no matter the combination, you'll end up with a sweet and refreshing drink.

Without a doubt, Starbucks apple juice is great on its own or mixed with other drinks, offering sweetness without overpowering other flavors. Besides the aforementioned tea-lemonade trick, what else can you do with this seemingly simple ingredient?

To create an apple pie-inspired drink, you can order steamed apple juice with pumps of chai or brown sugar syrups for warm spice flavors. You can even top it off with a caramel drizzle or whipped cream like in the caramel apple spice drink. Alternatively, you can upgrade apple juice with cinnamon dolce or chai syrup and sweet cold foam for a different take on apple pie in a cup.

Just like tea, apple juice also pairs deliciously with Starbucks' lemonade bases — particularly the strawberry açai base with extra strawberry puree. The resulting drink is packed with fruity goodness while still tasting light and refreshing thanks to the apple juice. Looks like this unassuming juice just became a menu board hero.