Iced Lavender Cream Chai {Starbucks Copycat}

This Starbucks copycat Iced Lavender Cream Chai is made with spiced chai, milk, and a dreamy lavender cold foam. It's surprisingly easy to make at home and perfectly balances warm chai spice with light floral lavender.

Jump to:

• 💜 Why this recipe works
• 🗒 Ingredients
• 🧋 Recipe tips
• 🎉 Recipe variations
• 🫖 How to make drink with tea bags
• 🥣 How to make with lavender syrup instead of powder
• 🪻 More lavender Starbucks drinks
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

Spring means lavender season at Starbucks, but in 2026 Starbucks decided to make lavender a permanent year-round part of their menu!

And with it, they launched a new drink: the Iced Lavender Cream Chai. It's a simple and tasty drink; just iced chai topped with a lavender cream cold foam.

While the drink has lots of fans, it's also been a disappointment to many because with it, Starbucks also changed their chai recipe from using a chai concentrate to using syrup instead.

I decided to make this copycat drink as close to Starbucks' old chai recipe as I could since it's much more delicious than the new version. I'll also show you how to make it the new way if you prefer.

💜 Why this recipe works

It uses Starbucks' old chai formula: this make-at-home recipe uses chai concentrate, which is how Starbucks used to make their drinks. It's undoubtably a tastier chai than the current one they make with chai syrup.

It's made with lavender powder: while I do give you an option to make this drink with lavender syrup, I recommend making it with lavender powder (I give you the recipe!) as this is how Starbucks does it.

Perfect combination of flavors: chai and lavender work so incredibly well together and are especially reminiscent of spring.

Components can be made ahead of time: if you're making your own lavender powder, you can make it well in advance. And you can make the lavender sweet cream in advance, too, and whip it into a cold foam right before you're ready to enjoy your drink.

It's very customizable: the drink is pretty simple in the ingredients it uses, but it's easy to make your own by adding the ingredients of your choice or swapping out the type of milk (or non-dairy alternative) you use.

🗒 Ingredients

The Iced Lavender Cream Chai is a super simple drink, but does have a few components to it. Here's everything you need to make the drink (be sure to view the recipe card at the bottom of this post for ingredient amounts and full recipe instructions):

• Ice
• Chai concentrate: Starbucks doesn't sell the chai tea concentrate they use, so I recommend using Tazo Chai Tea Concentrate (Starbucks actually used to use this!) or simply the brand you like best. If you prefer to make a homemade chai tea with tea bags instead, I share some information on how to do that below.
• 2% milk: or the dairy/dairy alternative of your choice
• Lavender cream cold foam: homemade from the recipe below

Here's what you need for the Lavender Cream Cold Foam:

• Heavy cream
• 2% milk
• Vanilla syrup: you can use a store-bought vanilla syrup or make your own using this vanilla syrup recipe
• Lavender powder:  I include my recipe for homemade lavender powder in this post, but if you prefer, you can substitute with lavender syrup (store-bought or homemade). To see a more in depth post, along with lots of ideas for using it, check out my full Starbucks lavender powder recipe

And here's what you need if you're making your own lavender powder:

• Culinary-grade dried lavender: make sure you're using culinary-grade lavender as you want it to be safe for consumption
• Granulated sugar
• Black currant powder: this will give the powder its pretty purple hue as the lavender flowers won't actually be purple enough. If you don't care about the purple color, you don't need to add it. Or you can use the purple coloring of your choice
• Salt
• Soy lecithin powder: this ingredient is optional, but does help prevent the powder from clumping when its added to liquid

In terms of equipment, I do recommend using a spice grinder or coffee grinder for the lavender powder. You can use a blender or food processor or mortar and pestle in a pinch, but a grinder will make your powder much finer.

I also love using an electric frother to make my cold foams, though you can use a hand mixer or blender if you prefer. You can also shake it vigorously in a jar, but it won't get quite as frothy.

🧋 Recipe tips

• When drinks are made with syrups, it's easy to offer store-bought options for anyone who doesn't want to make syrups from scratch. For some reason, there's still no sweetened lavender powder on the market that's a great substitute for Starbucks'. This Blume Lavender Powder is probably the closest I've found, but it's still not as sweet as the powder from Starbucks.

• If you're making your own lavender powder, I recommend using a spice grinder or coffee grinder to get it into powder form. You can use a blender or food processor or mortar and pestle in a pinch, but a grinder will make your powder much finer.

• If you don't use the black currant powder in your mixture (or another purple colorant), your powder will be a grayish brown color. But it will still taste the same and you can always add a tiny bit of purple (or red and blue) food coloring to your cold foam to get the purple hue.

• The soy lecithin helps the lavender powder dissolve into iced drinks a little better, but you can skip it if you prefer and your drinks will still be OK.

• Store your lavender powder in a mason jar or another airtight container and keep it in a cool, dark place. When stored properly, this lavender powder should stay fresh for at least 6 months.

• You can make the lavender sweet cream in advance and keep it in a mason jar or airtight container in your fridge. When you're ready for your drink, whip it into a cold foam (don't make the cold foam until right before you're planning to drink!).

• If you don't have a frother, you can make your cold foam in a blender or with a hand mixer. You can even just keep it in the mason jar and shake it vigorously. Your foam won't be quite as voluminous, but it will still give you a nice froth.

• Make sure your cream and milk are very cold when you make the cold foam as cold dairy will whip and froth much better than room temperature.

• For assembling the drink, you just need to mix the chai concentrate and milk into an ice-filled cup.

• If you want to use syrups instead of concentrate (the new way Starbucks makes their chai drinks), Starbucks uses 4 pumps chai syrup and 4 pumps classic (plain) syrup. For reference, 4 pumps is about 1 oz or 2 Tbsp.

• Pour cold foam over the drink, so it rests on top of the chai mixture and slowly seeps down into the drink.

• Feel free to take this recipe and adjust everything to your own tastes! I try to make my recipes as close to Starbucks as possible, but one of the best things about making the drinks at home is that you can do anything you want to them!

If you're a chai fan, I think you'll really appreciate how the floral notes of the lavender complement the sweet spices.

🎉 Recipe variations

Though this drink is already pretty sweet, you can add all kinds of extra syrups and other fun ingredients to it. There are lots of ways to make it your own!

Here are some ideas:

• Add vanilla syrup, blueberry syrup, or the syrup flavor of your choice to the chai and milk mixture.
• Add strawberry puree to the chai and milk mixture.
• For a dirty lavender chai, add a couple shots of espresso to the drink. The bitterness will help cut some of the sweetness and add some more caffeine, of course.
• For more lavender flavor, mix some lavender powder into the chai/milk mixture.
• If you're not a fan of the chai spices, you can make this drink with earl grey tea concentrate or tea bags.
• Use the milk or non-dairy alternative of your choice. Oat milk is especially delicious (like Starbucks uses in the Iced Lavender Oatmilk Matcha!), but coconut milk is also perfect.
• Add a drizzle of white mocha syrup for a dessert-like drink.

🫖 How to make drink with tea bags

If you want a lower sugar drink or just a more "natural" chai flavor, you can make your chai tea with actual tea bags. I recommend using a couple tea bags per cup of water so you still have a concentrated flavor to the drink.

I like these chai tea bags best.

When making the drink, you'll want to use more of the tea than you would of the concentrate. Then you can add simple syrup, honey, agave, or maple syrup until you reach the sweetness level you like.

Another option is to use a lower sugar chai tea concentrate. You can also use less of the regular chai concentrate if you want, but you don't want to lessen the chai flavor too much.

🥣 How to make with lavender syrup instead of powder

If you don't want to make your own lavender powder, you can make this drink with lavender syrup instead.

I recommend using 1 ½ tablespoon lavender syrup and ½ tablespoon vanilla syrup in the cold foam.

You may need to add a little purple (or red and blue) food coloring to achieve the purple hue of Starbucks' cold foam.

🪻 More lavender Starbucks drinks

Now that lavender is permanent at Starbucks, you can order the drinks any time of year. But you can also make them at home whenever you want!

Here are my favorite Starbucks lavender copycat drink recipes:

If you love fruity chais, you should also try my Iced Mango Cream Chai. And you can check out all my Starbucks copycat recipes here.

Do you enjoy both lavender and chai flavors?

Try this drink and let me know what you think!

📖 Recipe