Starbucks Cold Brew Latte

The Starbucks Cold Brew Latte carries 123 calories in a Grande and 166.5mg of caffeine, which is nearly double what an iced latte delivers. Cold brew coffee is poured over ice with milk, and every dairy alternative on the counter works with it.

Cold brew takes milk better than espresso does. Twenty hours of cold steeping leaves out most of the acidity that makes an espresso based iced latte taste sharp against dairy, so the two sit together smoothly rather than competing. What comes through is chocolate and a rounded sweetness with no bitter edge at all, which is why this drink needs no syrup to be drinkable and most people order it plain.

The caffeine pattern is unusual. A Tall is 159.1mg, a Grande 166.5mg and a Venti 204.7mg, so the step from Tall to Grande adds only about 7mg. Cold brew is poured to a fixed measure and the larger cup takes more milk and ice rather than more coffee. Anyone chasing caffeine gets far more out of two Talls than one Venti. Calories run 88, 123 and 142 across those sizes, with 11.1g of sugar in a Grande, all of it from milk.

It is also the most forgiving drink on the cold menu to let sit. Espresso based iced coffee goes sour as it warms, because the acids that heat pulled out of the grounds become more obvious as the temperature rises. Cold brew has almost none of those to begin with, so a cup left on a desk for half an hour tastes diluted rather than unpleasant. That makes it the sensible order if the drink is going to outlast the walk back.

Starbucks UK does not publish a delivery price for this one, which is why the figure above is blank rather than estimated. It sits between the plain cold brew and an iced latte in store. The Cold Brew Coffee is the black version at 22 calories in a Grande, and the Iced Caffè Latte is the espresso based equivalent with far less caffeine.