The Forgotten Starbucks Shaken Tea Infused With Sangria Flavors

Many classic Starbucks beverages are permanent fixtures on the company's menu, but others tend to come and go. That includes their ever-evolving cold drink offerings, which include iced coffee and tea concoctions, Frappuccinos, juices, and sparkling waters, as well as a parade of colorful, juice-filled Refreshers beverages. Then there are the specialty collaborations with other drink purveyors, such as a certain shaken tea infused with sangria flavors. 

That would be the non-alcoholic Teavana Shaken Berry Sangria Herbal Tea, announced by Starbucks in the summer of 2016. It seemed like a match made in beverage heaven, given that Starbucks acquired the popular Teavana brand in 2012 for $620 million, replacing existing Tazo teas in company stores. They subsequently launched a slew of Teavana brewed-to-order hot teas, including a high-visibility Teavana Oprah Chai, benefiting the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation. 

When the cold, hand-shaken, Teavana sangria creation dropped in 2016, it heralded the arrival of summer warmth and peak fresh fruit availability. The Teavana Shaken Berry Sangria Herbal Tea joined other similar drinks for that season, including a Teavana Shaken Iced Mango Black Tea Lemonade, the Teavana Shaken Iced Peach Green Tea, and a separate Youthberry White Tea Granita for the late afternoon Sunset Menu. But by 2017, the drink was nowhere to be found, and the company confirmed via social media that it would not be returning. That also happened to be the year in which Starbucks announced it would be closing all 379 Teavana retail stores worldwide.  

Whether the closure of Starbucks-owned Teavana stores led directly to the demise of its Teavana Shaken Berry Sangria Herbal Tea may never be confirmed. But the spunky fruit-powered drink likely got a warm embrace by iced tea fans during its short life. What's not to love when a barista hand-shakes an icy herbal concoction bursting with fresh fruit, sweet sangria syrup, and a mix of botanical and citrus teas?

Here's what actually floated inside those refreshing, frosty cups of crimson-red deliciousness. Given its designation as a tea-based beverage, the specific tea blend was a pivotal component in this Teavana drink. Kudos there go to the Teavana Iced Passion Tango Tea, a mixture of hibiscus and lemongrass with an added infusion of apple flavors. The transformative sangria flavor came from a syrup consisting of all-fruit notes including raspberry, peach, blood orange, and elderberry. Unlike the universally popular sangria cocktail, the Starbucks cold drink contained no wine or flavored liqueurs. The crowning touch of the Teavana Shaken Berry Sangria Herbal Tea came from hand-shaking fresh blackberries, orange slices, and more apple flavor, this time from real apple juice. 

This beverage was also released during the era of the ill-fated Fizzio handcrafted sodas, made with in-store proprietary Fizzio machines. So, U.S. customers in Hawaii and other sunbelt states had the opportunity to order sparkling versions of the Teavana Shaken Berry Sangria Herbal Tea, courtesy of those machines.