We Found The Worst Sugar-Free Drink On Starbucks' Menu

The drinks at Starbucks can get quite pricey, so knowing what not to order is just as important as knowing a good order. The last thing you want is buyer's remorse. This gets slightly more complicated when you have a dietary limitation of any sort, such as being sugar-free. Tasting Table tested 14 sugar-free Starbucks drinks in a quest to find which ones are worth the money and which ones are a waste of precious dollars. The worst sugar-free drink on the whole menu turned out to be hot chai tea.

Our taste tester was incredibly disappointed in the flavor, finding a notable lack of balance in the spices-to-water ratio. Despite the nice aroma, the flavor of Starbucks' chai tea was overpowering and unpleasant. The drink is made with hot water and a tea bag, unlike the chai latte, which is made from chai concentrate. Short and Tall orders come with one tea bag, while Venti and Grande come with two. The tea bag contains black tea and the usual assortment of spices found in traditional chai — cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, star anise, and black pepper. Without any customizations, the price of hot chai tea is around $4.

There are ways to customize your sugar-free drink at Starbucks, which you can use to your advantage if you want a less intense chai flavor. The easiest way is to add a splash of milk that aligns with your dietary restrictions or ask to have the hot chai sweetened with one of Starbucks' sugar-free syrups. If you don't like the idea of additions and want to keep your tea plain, you could remove the tea bag from the hot water after just a short time so that it doesn't steep for too long. Alternatively, you could simply order a Venti or a Grande but ask for a single tea bag instead of two.

If you're not completely dead-set on chai, though, there are some better options for tasty sugar-free drinks at Starbucks. Our taste tester ranked the Nitro Cold Brew as the number one — and yes, there is a difference between regular cold brew and nitro. However, it might be a bit too heavy on the caffeine if you're only used to drinking tea. Nitro cold brew comes with 280 milligrams of caffeine, which is a massive jump from the 40 milligrams you're getting in chai tea. If you're looking for something milder, go for Chamomile Mint Blossom Tea instead. It ranked as number two on our list and only contains 25 milligrams of caffeine.