13 Tips You Need When Ordering Iced Coffee Drinks At Starbucks

As a college student, I spent several years' worth of summer and winter breaks as a Starbucks barista. When I went back to school, I took what I learned at Starbucks and applied it to my job at a coffee shop called The Cage that was located in the student union of my university. Even though I've hung up my green apron, I continue to be a Starbucks customer. I sample new drinks as they come out and am always interested in new ways the brand is rolling out flavors or making tweaks to the menu. Over time, I have fine-tuned my tastes to adamantly prefer Starbucks iced coffee drinks over hot ones, even during the coldest of winters.

There are plenty of ways you can make the iced coffee drinks better than the basic offerings, but there's also lots to know in general about ordering these beverages. If you, like me, prefer iced coffee drinks, hopefully, these tips will help you fine-tune your own order. On the other hand, if you're entering the world of iced coffee for the first time, I'm hopeful that these tips will help you create a great first iced coffee drink.

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In terms of iced coffee drinks, the basic iced coffee is quite easy to make. Baristas brew the coffee in large batches and then pour that hot brewed coffee over ice in a pitcher. The drink is then stored in the refrigerator until it needs to be used. When it comes time to prepare your iced coffee, they pour the appropriate amount of ice in a drink cup and pour the cold coffee from the pitcher over the ice.

As a default, a basic iced coffee doesn't include any creamer, sweetener, or even flavoring. When you order in person, your barista may still ask if you want any cream or sweetener. But if they don't ask you, be forewarned that nothing will be put in the cup besides coffee and ice. Of course, in the app, there are plenty of ways to customize an iced coffee, with the most basic addition being classic syrup and a splash of cream. If you prefer to add your own extras, you can also ask for room to be left at the top of the cup.

Classic syrup is far from the only type of syrup that goes well in an iced coffee drink. You have the option to choose from any of the other syrups available, or you could add one of the sauces instead. A word to the wise about the sauces, however. When you order a sauce, like mocha or pumpkin spice, in your basic iced coffee, it will come out thick, rather than melted, because the beverage is served cold. This is why these sauces typically are paired with the espresso-based, handcrafted drinks.

Instead, I recommend opting for a flavored syrup over a sauce. There are several choices that would add quite a lot of flavor to your beverage; some of my favorites are toffee nut, caramel, and a mixture of vanilla and hazelnut to make something like a French vanilla. For those who want to switch drinks up for different times of the year, seasonal syrups are always an option for adding to iced coffee. For example, the iced cookie syrup, which is featured on the winter menu, always pairs well with iced coffee. You will not be charged extra for the syrups, even if you add more pumps of syrups beyond the standard for that size. 

Cold foam flavors aren't just for cold brew coffee. There are many other items on the Starbucks menu that it does well on top of, and a basic iced coffee is definitely one of them. With a simple cold foam topper, you add flavoring and creamer right into your coffee. As the cold foam melts into the drink, it'll flavor the whole thing. But for those first few sips, you'll get a burst of sweetness before it fully mixes in.

My favorite cold foam to add to almost any drink is the salted caramel cream cold foam. Starbucks also offers a dairy-free version of this foam. So, since iced coffee is a dairy-free drink on its own, adding this dairy-free cold foam would make it one of the easiest vegan drinks to order off the menu.

I should note that adding cold foam to an iced coffee does tend to be a little bit on the pricey side. At my local Starbucks, getting a cold foam topper added a $1.45 surcharge to the drink; this cost was the same for dairy-free or regular cold foam. 

If you are looking for a bit of a visual pop in your iced coffee drink, asking for a drizzling of caramel syrup on the inside of the cup will certainly make it look more appealing. However, since both caramel and coffee are brown, you'll want to make sure that you add at least a little bit of cream to your coffee to allow the caramel to show through.

Beyond making a pretty photo, the caramel drizzle adds just a little bit of sweetness to your coffee. It will mingle with your coffee and sweeten it up, but mostly, it'll cling to the cup itself. When you ask for this addition in person, you'll need to request a lining of caramel on the inside of your cup. When you order this over the app, the option will be under "Add Line the Cup." The options are either mocha or caramel sauce. Caramel is definitely my preference because I don't like the mocha syrup at Starbucks nearly as much. I should note here that the lining of the cup does cost an additional $0.60 for your order, but the flavor is well worth it. 

Not only can you add espresso shots to your chai drinks for a dirty chai, but you can also add chai concentrate to your iced coffee. I recommend starting off with one pump for a tall, two for a grande, and three for a venti-sized iced coffee. If you tend to want just a little bit of spice, you may want to scale that back even further to adjust the flavoring to exactly your taste.

In addition to bringing spice into your drink, adding chai concentrate will also increase the caffeine content. To determine the caffeine content estimation per pump, I took a look at the grande chai latte, which comes with four pumps of chai concentrate, bringing the drink to 95 milligrams of caffeine. That means that each pump contains about 24 milligrams of caffeine. This is helpful information if you are carefully monitoring your caffeine intake or you want to know exactly what you're adding to your drink.

Of course, you can always start with a pump of chai and add espresso to your iced coffee. If you go this route, I highly recommend going with the blonde espresso roast since the signature blend conflicts too much with the chai.

Starbucks Rewards is a system that earns you stars for the purchases you make in person or through the app. These stars can rack up pretty quickly if you're a frequent visitor. You can cash these in for drink customizations, food, your favorite handcrafted beverage, or some merchandise. Most commonly, I use my stars for free drinks. A handcrafted drink will set you back 200 stars, but an iced coffee, regardless of the customizations and additions you make, will be only 100 stars. This makes an iced coffee a wise use of your hard-earned stars in the Starbucks app.

Another great way to ensure that you are making the most out of your stars is by paying attention to special offers that might crop up. Every now and again, I will get an offer to visit a Starbucks a certain amount of times in a certain amount of days, and if I do that, I'll get a hefty star bonus. Paying attention to these small opportunities helps pull in the stars even more. Not to mention, when you bring in your own cup from home, you earn an additional 25 stars. Therefore, if you bring in your own cup four times, you'll earned yourself a free iced coffee.

In my days as a Starbucks barista, there weren't many drinks you might classify as secret menu items except for a small few. A dirty chai is one, and red eyes (or black eyes) are another.

A typical red eye is a coffee with a shot of espresso dumped in, and a black eye comes with two shots. You can easily make this caffeinated addition to your iced coffee. The espresso shot will make your drink quite a bit stronger in flavor, so if you're one who likes creamer or flavoring with your coffee, you'll probably want to increase the amounts of those, too. For a smoother result, order blonde roast espresso shots. Or, for a more traditional and strong espresso flavor, opt for a signature espresso roast. These days, I order blonde roast for almost any espresso drink I get from Starbucks.

For most drinks, the largest size you can order at Starbucks is a venti. However, for Refreshers, iced tea, cold brew, and iced coffees, you can size up to something even larger with Starbucks' largest cup size: a trenta. Before you dash off to the drive-through to pick up one of these coffees, it's helpful to know a bit about this bigger-than-large size.

Inside that cup of iced coffee is 30 fluid ounces of coffee containing somewhere in the neighborhood of 320 milligrams of caffeine. This number is staggering and higher than many energy drinks you can find on grocery store shelves, even if the container is bigger, too. If you're planning on taking that trenta to go, it may be best to plan on having it fly solo in your vehicle's cup holder. On its own, it'll likely fit, but with another drink paired with it, the cups may become a little crowded.

Starbucks' mobile app is an efficient way to customize your drink. Though not all of its drinks have the same customization options listed the app, the changes you can make to the drink right from the app are numerous. Everything from syrup or creamer to espresso or chai add-ins are at your fingertips. 

Ordering ahead of time in the app helps you save time waiting in line. And for those of us who may be a little more shy or nervous about requesting numerous changes, the app can quell at least some of those nerves. In most cases, I've noticed that Starbucks' mobile order pickup will be at the end of the bar near the entrance. Some locations have shelves or little taped alleys to guide customers to the area to pick up their drinks, but I've found less busy locations tend to just place the drink at the end of the bar.

I've never been one to finish my drinks quickly, so I can't say I've gotten a refill from a Starbucks visit more than a handful of times. But if you happen to be a quick sipper and love iced coffee, I've got some great news. If you use the app to order or pay for hot or iced coffee or tea, you can finish your drink off in the coffee shop and return to the counter and get a free refill. It's a great option if you're working or lingering in a Starbucks store; you can fill up before you leave — and essentially get two coffees for the price of one. 

If you happen to frequent one of Target's Starbucks stores, be sure to get your iced coffee before shopping so you can return after you've completed your shopping — and your drink — to get that refill. You may need to show the barista your order on the app, so be sure to have it ready when you're in line. And since Target's carts have cup holders, you can have spot for your beverage to chill out.

Of all the drinks I made during my time at Starbucks, my favorite was perhaps an iced caramel macchiato. This drink starts with a layer of vanilla syrup, followed by ice and milk, espresso shots poured on top of the milk, and then a drizzling of caramel over everything. When the drink is made this way, the espresso shots slowly mix into the milk before eventually reaching the vanilla all the way at the bottom.

It's never really been one of my favorite drinks to order, that is, until I tried the caramel macchiato upside down. The premise with an upside down macchiato is that everything is made in reverse, with the caramel and espresso going in first. The reason this is such a pro move is that your espresso will be toward the bottom of the cup, which means everything gets poured on top of it. This makes it much easier to mix together. 

The swap is an easy request when ordering it in-store, and there's a button for it in the customization part of the app, too. Baristas see this one pretty regularly as it's become more and more popular, so you won't be asking for anything out of the ordinary.

When it comes to chocolate sauces at Starbucks, most people are very familiar with the mocha sauce. It's in the iced mocha and the hot chocolate, and even though customers sometimes expect a flavor closer to milk chocolate, mocha actually resembles a bitter dark chocolate. However, not everyone knows about the white chocolate mocha. While the mocha itself is pretty bitter, a white mocha is much sweeter and adds a smoothness to your drinks that's both enjoyable and rich.

This white mocha is a good addition to both an iced caramel macchiato as well as an iced brown sugar shaken espresso. In fact, my favorite order recently has been an iced caramel macchiato, made upside down, with blonde roast and a couple of pumps of white mocha. I will also ask for a topper of salted caramel cream cold foam. The drink is pretty expensive, so I normally save up my stars to make it a real treat on a road trip. Overall, I think this drink is truly made better with the white mocha rather than the regular mocha. I should note that you're really only going to want to order mocha or white chocolate mocha with an espresso-based iced coffee drink, not a cold brew or iced coffee. This is because the espresso can easily melt the sauce, while the basic iced coffee won't. 

You may be familiar with the concept of a secret menu, but you might not know that Starbucks doesn't actually have an official secret menu. Rather, these drinks are dreamt up by customers who take inspiration from pop culture and their favorite flavors to customize drinks with Starbucks' available options.

The secret menu items often gain traction through social media; they're shared across TikTok and on dedicated secret menu Facebook pages. If you've ever been interested in finding some ultra unique and even experimental drinks to order from the coffee giant, consider joining one of these pages or scrolling through TikTok to find them. You'll gain confidence by experimenting with Starbucks customizations and have more fun with your coffee order, too. Starbucks baristas will do pretty much any kind of drink request you can think of, but be sure you keep in mind your personal limitations for sugar and caffeine.