14 Sugar-Free Starbucks Drinks Ranked

Did you know there are over 170,000 different drink combinations you can conjure up at Starbucks? There is an overabundance of coffee beans, brewing types (both hot and cold), syrups, milk options, teas, and more to choose from. But, the problem is many of these infusions and blends come riddled with sugar and calories, which may not be ideal for every drinker. Just one grande Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino contains 60 grams of sugar. Even a straightforward grande caffè latte with 2% milk boasts upwards of 20 grams, and those fruity beverages like the Pink Drink certainly aren't exempt from the sugar. 

Don't worry, though. There is still hope and plenty of ways to swing through the Starbucks drive-thru and keep your sugar content to a minimum. The sugar-free trend has been brewing for a while now, and there are plenty of Starbucks drinks to choose from here. Ranging from hot and cold coffees to teas and energy drinks, these gems can be found hiding all over the menu, and I'm putting them all to the test and ranking them based on their pure, unadulterated taste. One thing is for certain: There's no sugar-coating these results.

When you're trying to cut sugar, Starbucks' hot tea menu beckons. Most options in this category fall under the no-sugar umbrella, including the hot chai tea — just make sure not to order the chai latte which has more sugar and calories. Conversely, the chai tea is bare bones, consisting of only a tea bag (just one for a tall order) and hot water.

I could take whiffs of this spiced, dark golden amber elixir all day long. A chai tea candle may be in my future. But, after all this build-up, I found myself disappointed in the taste. Aggressive and sharp pangs of clove, cardamom, ginger, and cinnamon congregate and burned at the back of the throat as I sipped. Even the smallest sip overwhelms the senses, and there's no milk or cream to cut that deeply-rooted flavor.  It's almost as if the tea bag was too strong for the amount of water in the cup. It needed a little bit more room to breathe. 

Nowadays, cold coffees outweigh hot coffees on the Starbucks menu. It's truly amazing how many different drinks you can spin up from a base of java and ice. The simple iced coffee, though, is the trailblazer that started it all. It's made with a Latin American-sourced blend and is served chilled, unsweetened, and over ice. The chain says it's meant to be approachable with notes of malted milk chocolate and brown sugar. But, compared to the rest of the sugar-free sips, all I could think was that it tasted weak.

It's reminiscent of a lighter roast coffee and even leans towards the sour side — possibly hinting at under-extraction. Perhaps the elementary iced coffee was always meant to be a building block and a starting point for customization rather than a final product. It doesn't stand out amongst other stripped-down cups (hot or cold). But, it remains a classic that's always just one quick modification away from being palatable.

Let me take you on a quick tour of Starbucks' in-house brewed coffees. First, we make a stop in Ethiopia with the chain's single-origin blonde roast. Then there's the Latin American medium and decaf Pike Place roasts (which also pay homage to the chain's birth city of Seattle) are next. Lastly, the full-bodied featured dark roast stands as an option when you need that extra kick of caffeine. I embodied the "stronger is better" coffee mantra and opted to try its dark roast — which also meant I signed up for its 155 to 195 milligrams of caffeine. And, that's just for a short cup. For a venti, you would actually be looking at about 390 to 490 milligrams of caffeine.

The dark roast is not for fair-weather coffee fans. A heaviness pours from the cup, though the rich and robust liquid isn't at all bitter. Aside from an initial wave of enriched flavor, though, there isn't much depth. It boils down to an average drip coffee that could have been made in a $20 at-home coffee maker. This lack of added value is the main reason why I ranked it ranked towards the bottom, just slightly above the diluted iced coffee.

The iced energy drinks at Starbucks only come in a venti. That means you're either all in on 24 ounces and 180 milligrams of caffeine, or you'll have to skip it altogether. Both the Tropical Citrus and Melon Burst flavors contain zero-sugar (a fact that I had to check twice to be sure of). So, after a quick bout of eeny, meeny, miny, moe, I landed on the melon variation.

Thanks to its base of Passion Tango tea — a Starbucks signature featuring flavors of hibiscus, lemongrass, and apple — the sparkling beverage teems with diverse tastes from the start. It's light and fresh. But, on top of this foundation, you get strong surges of melon — like cantaloupe and honeydew — with undertones of cucumber. Everything was copacetic until the tangs of artificiality hit. Instead of sugar, the drink gets its sweetness from a different source: sucralose, the ingredient used to make Splenda. Its presence is more than known, even in a sea of fruits and fragrant ingredients, and it throws the recipe off just enough to pull it down in the ranks.

You may already be familiar with the specific espresso maker Starbucks uses in its shops. The Masterna is made by Swiss company Thermoplan AG. It's a machine that costs upwards of $18,000, and it's highly customizable options are the reason why chain's espresso drinks are so difficult to replicate at home, including the straight espresso shot.

This coffee choice is not for the weak. I went with the signature espresso, bypassing the blonde roast and decaf options. In its pure shot form, the espresso forgoes all add-ins, including milk to syrup, leaving just you and a deep black liquid extracted from Latin America and Asian Pacific-sourced beans. I didn't necessarily pick up on the roasted caramel notes that Starbucks tries to sell you on. What I did experience was a rush of intensity that levels itself out as your taste buds adjust. It's not overly sour, bitter, or burnt. And for me, that alone is a major win for an espresso shot.

When you need some no-frills energy, these sharpshooters are always there for you in several size options, including solo, doppio, triple, or quad. They stand as Starbucks' most efficient path to a more productive day (or at least a more productive couple of hours). 

At the coffee shop, a shaken espresso is a nonalcoholic coffee cocktail of sorts that shakes up espresso and combines it with milk and flavored syrups. This is not that, yet you'll find it in the same category on the menu. The iced espresso instead cuts out all the fluff, standing as a straightforward espresso on the rocks. It comes out looking rather sad–like an unadorned iced coffee that wasn't filled up all the way. But, the taste helps to make up for its inauspicious appearance.

The ice works to mellow out the shop's standard hot espresso shot in every way possible. The drink suddenly becomes less intimidating and more conducive to sipping and savoring as the extreme bold coffee taste is brought down to a manageable level. Essentially, you can either think of the iced espresso as a weakened espresso shot or as a stronger, much smaller iced Americano. The only reason it falls behind the Caffe Americano in rank is due to an almost (keyword almost) undetectable burnt edge that accompanies some swigs.

The iced caffè Americano is a curious drink; one an Italian barista would likely scoff at. The hot version of the beverage is much more common, made up of espresso topped with hot water. But, as long as the iced coffee trend still has traction, coffeehouses like Starbucks will continue to ice-ify everything they can get their hands on, including the traditional Americano.

The chain shares that mixing espresso with water (cold water in this case) creates a light layer of crema before the blend is poured over ice. I didn't notice a layer of crema on my to-go beverage. But, everything else seemed to line up and I will say that the iced caffè Americano stands in a league of its own, somewhere in the middle of all other iced coffee variants. It's less bitter than straight shots and more flavorful than brewed iced coffee. At the same time, though, it's not as smooth or complex as the cult-following cold brew. It delivers a classic coffee experience that won't disappoint but won't necessarily delight either. Plus, it just might leave you with a bit of a funky aftertaste.

Iced tea is not often on my radar at Starbucks but maybe it should be. It comes in a sea of assorted colors and flavors from matcha lattes and green tea to Passion Tango and this classic iced black tea. It's called black tea because the tea leaves it uses turn black from the oxidation process. But, while the idea of old, blackened leaves sounds off-putting, the infusion — which actually takes on a brownish-red hue — couldn't be more fresh and light.

Unlike the overpowering hot chai tea, this one strikes a proper balance between the tea bag and the water and ice, creating a sip that isn't overly strong but isn't too saturated either. Notes of earthy honey radiate throughout the cup and a moderate level of astringency (that dry or bitter mouthfeel that comes from the drink's tannins) is present. It's surprisingly quite flavorful.

If you are looking for a bit more oomph, the iced black tea lemonade is also at your service. But, know that this menu option does take you into sugar territory with 11 total grams.

Sophisticated is the first word this espresso adaption summons to mind. Wearing a top hat of dolloped steam milk, I think the only proper way to enjoy one is on the patio of a bustling Italian caffè. Like the iced espresso, it offers some relief from the stark impact of a signature espresso shot. But, in this case, the small amount of 2% milk (or any other alternative of your choice like almond, coconut, or oat) doesn't take away from the boldness of the espresso like the ice does. Instead, it adds a light creaminess to the concentrated coffee for a more complementary beverage.

Ordered in a solo size as I did, the espresso macchiato provides you with about 75 milligrams of caffeine. But, I think I could have worked my way through a doppio or triple serving in this specific espresso style at 150 milligrams and 225 milligrams of caffeine respectively, since it's lighter on the palate. The 300-milligram quad may be overkill, but I still think that if you're ordering an espresso shot at Starbucks, this is the way to do it.

The Caffè Americano is in its element when served piping hot. At Starbucks, the drink follows the same idea as its iced spin-off. It's composed of espresso shots and water (hot water this time), and that's all she wrote. It's no fuss but ends up ranking miles ahead of other simple recipes like the featured dark roast coffee. And that's the espresso difference. It trades depthless drip coffee for something more full-bodied and well-rounded. The Americano also lacks that intense initial taste of the dark roast but, at the same time, offers more overall caffeine. A short cup of the Americano stands at 225 milligrams of caffeine compared to 155 to 195 in a short dark roast.

The Americano is just all-around smooth and satisfying; probably the tastiest and purest hot coffee you'll find on the menu. Even if the ratio of espresso to water had been more skewed toward the coffee side, I think it still would have been a success. But, perhaps my taste buds were thrown off by all those back-to-back espresso shots.

Avid coffee drinkers will take up arms over the discussion of iced coffee versus cold brew. But, whether they tend to lean toward one side or the other, the fact remains that the two are inherently different and it all starts with the brewing process. While iced coffee is made by brewing hot coffee and then chilling it, cold brew comes to life by steeping coffee grounds in cold water. So, the coffee in cold brew is never heated up.

Specifically at Starbucks, the cold brew is handcrafted daily in batches and steeped for a total of 20 hours — sometimes if you come later in the day you may even miss out on the specialty. It really is a labor of love, but it's well worth it. The difference is noticeable from the jump. All traces of bitterness and acidity begone as a pleasing smoothness takes over. It's additionally defined by its freshness that a coffee that has been brewed and sat chilling for who knows how long just can't compete with.

The cold brew can stand all by itself. However, it could also be enhanced (and still kept sugar-free) by a pump or two of sugar-free vanilla syrup.

As a refresher, the Passion Tango tea — which was also found in the earlier melon iced energy — combines flavors of hibiscus flowers, lemongrass, and apple in addition to supporting ingredients like cinnamon and licorice root. If the name drove you to believe it was conversely passionfruit-based, you're not alone.

In the cup, the drink radiates a glamorous color of hot pink and the taste matches this level of enjoyability. It reads like a fruity or tropical punch with a strong essence that makes up for its lack of sweetness. Hibiscus leads the charge with its blend of tart and floral tangs then you get a punch of lemongrass citrus while apple plays a smaller role in the background. I didn't notice the cinnamon flavor but I wish I had because I think the light spice would have diversified the palate and further accentuated the other natural savors.

With its healthy and fresh nature, I think I would pick it over one of the chain's famous Refreshers and it definitely has my favor over most other sugar-free drinks on the menu. F.Y.I. it also comes in a lemonade version, but that will cost you about 8 to 21 grams of sugar depending on what size you order.

Talk about sticking out like a sore thumb. While most other Starbucks drinks strive to rev you up, this chamomile tea mellows you back out — though it does contain trace amounts of caffeine (16-25 mg for a tall cup, to be exact). Just from the bouquet alone, I could feel my cortisol levels start to drop. Floral, herbal, and fruity aromas tantalize your senses before you even take your first sip of the heated brew.

The taste is only slightly less pleasing than the initial smell. It's not sweet. You think I would have suspected that during a sugar-free taste test, but for some reason, I was banking on a wave of candied sweetness. Instead, it coats your tongue and throat like a bright, fruit-infused honey before leaving you with a sensation of cool mint after you've swallowed. The palate is on the mild side, even after the pyramid-shaped tea bag has been left to seep for quite a while. It's overall charming, comforting, and juxtaposed with a flood of dark coffees it's a refreshing change of pace.

With its deep, dark black hue and foamy top layer, the nitro cold brew could be mistaken for a pint o' Guinness–a sentiment that isn't too far off. The new-age coffee starts with a foundation of slow-steeped cold brew coffee. It's then infused with nitrogen gas (the same way Guinness beer is) to create microbubbles throughout. At Starbucks, it's poured straight from a tap like a true brew and is not joined by ice, leaving more room for pure nitrogen-blasted delectability.

The flavor itself leans toward smooth chocolate and offers a sweet richness that immediately eclipses all other coffees on the menu, both cold and hot. But, the texture is the real star here. It's cascading with creaminess just as the chain promises — a sensation that extends beyond just the foam cap on top, defining each and every mouthful down to the last drop. At 215 milligrams of caffeine for a tall and 280 milligrams for a grande, it's a near-perfect sugar-free coffee. And, you can even make it a vanilla sweet cream nitro cold brew for just 4 grams of sugar —not too shabby.

You don't have to have sugar to have a good time. But, what that does mean is that without sugar, I was forced to judge these Starbucks refreshments by their natural taste. In this pure state, coffees and teas need to strike a subtle balance between weak and strong, acidic and bitter. And, without added sweeteners or creams these flaws start to become much more obvious — as was the case with iced coffee or featured dark roast.

Others were able to achieve this equilibrium, providing a bright, freshly brewed flavor and a smooth and easy sip that doesn't leave an unsavory aftertaste. Brownie points were then awarded for taking things a step further like offering a creamy consistency just as the nitro cold brew did.