Iced Black Tea (Starbucks Copycat Recipe) - Oh, How Civilized (2024)

A refreshing and flavorful drink, this Starbucks Iced Black tea copycat is made with just 3 ingredients. It’s easy to make it at home in just 5 minutes!

Recipe Highlights

• Starbucks Iced Black Tea is a cold, caffeinated drink that combines unsweetened English breakfast tea and ice.
• This easy copycat recipe recreates the Starbucks Iced Black Tea using 3 ingredients. It makes a grande size (16 ounces) drink.
• Starbucks uses an iced tea concentrate, but this homemade version is made by brewing hot tea using tea bags and then quickly cooling it down with ice in a co*cktail shaker. No co*cktail shaker? A jar with a tight lid also works.
• The drink is unsweetened, but it’s easy to customize by adding flavored simple syrup like vanilla or mint.

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Iced Black Tea at Starbucks

Iced Black Tea is made by combining a pre-made black tea concentrate, filtered water, and ice. The tea concentrate, water, and ice are shaken together in a co*cktail shaker then poured into a cup.

Water is added to the drink to dilute the black tea concentrate.

Starbucks no longer sweetens their Iced Black Tea unless requested, but if you want to make it like they used to, just ask for 4 pumps of liquid cane sugar for a grande.

The most popular sweeteners requested are Classic syrup, liquid cane sugar, raspberry or vanilla syrup.

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Ingredient Notes

• Tazo Awake English breakfast Tea: Starbucks uses Teavana’s black tea concentrate to make their iced tea, but the concentrate and the tea bags aren’t available for purchase. Tazo’s Awake English breakfast tea is very close in taste to the one at Starbucks. Tazo also sells an Unsweetened Iced Black Tea concentrate, but DO NOT get this since it tastes gross and has a weird aftertaste.
• Water: If possible, use filtered water for a better tasting tea. Starbucks uses triple filtered water to make their drinks.
• Ice: Filtered water makes better tasting ice.

For full ingredients and detailed instructions, please see the recipe card at the bottom of the post.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: Put tea bags and hot water into a teapot.

Instead of using boiling hot water, use simmered water to steep tea. Simmer water on the stovetop or use an electric kettle with a temperature setting.

Step 2: Cover and steep.

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Step 3: Put ice and hot tea into a co*cktail shaker. Shake. If you want to add sweetener, add it into the co*cktail shaker with the hot tea and ice. If you don’t have a co*cktail shaker, use a large jar with a tight lid.

Step 4: Pour iced tea into a cup. Empty everything from the co*cktail shaker into the cup.

Ways to Sweeten Iced Black Tea

Starbucks Iced Black Tea doesn’t come sweetened and neither does this copycat recipe, but it’s easy to make this drink sweet. Add simple syrup to taste, or start with 2 tablespoons of syrup into the co*cktail shaker with the hot tea and ice.

Always use simple syrup for cold drinks since it’s easier to mix into the iced beverage.

Simple syrup
The easiest way to sweeten a cold drink is with simple syrup. Making your own simple syrup is quick and easy, using just 2 ingredients.

Brown sugar simple syrup
Instead of regular simple syrup, add brown sugar simple syrup to give your drink a richer, caramel sweetness.

Vanilla syrup
Use store-bought or homemade vanilla syrup to add a flavor boost to black tea.

Lemon syrup
Brighten up your iced tea with homemade lemon syrup.

Rose syrup
Rose flavored syrup isn’t a syrup option at Starbucks, but if you love floral flavors, add rose syrup to your iced tea.

Honey syrup
If you want a more traditional sweetener to go with black tea, add honey syrup. It’ll mix better in iced tea than honey itself.

RELATED: Simple Syrups Recipes

Expert Tips

• English breakfast tea is a blend of black teas and every brand makes a different mix. Starbucks uses Teavana’s English breakfast tea to make their black teas but you can use any English breakfast tea from any brand.
• If you don’t have English breakfast tea bags, any black tea blend (Irish breakfast, Scottish breakfast, etc.) or Assam tea will work.
• To use loose tea, replace the 2 tea bags with 1 heaping tablespoon of English breakfast tea.
• Use an electric kettle to set the correct temperature to boil water. Not all tea should be made using boiling hot water.
• Don’t oversteep! Steeping more than the recommended time will make your tea taste bitter.
• The more vigorously you shake the iced tea, the more foam you’ll see on the surface. If you like a lot of foam, shake it 40 times.

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Questions You May Have

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