Nav: Home > Coffee News >

Starbucks becomes a substitute for King Tea?! Netizen: Don't be deceived

Published: 2026-08-05 Author:

Last Updated: 2026/08/05, ▲ Click to pay attention| Daily Boutique Coffee Culture Magazine Coffee Factory At present, the tea industry has gone out to sea to seize foreign markets, bringing Chinese milk tea to overseas friends, and allowing children from afar to miss their hometown while drinking milk tea. However, since overseas stores of tea brands have not blossomed as widely as in China, many international students are even very

▲

Click follow | Daily boutique coffee culture magazine coffee workshop

At present, the tea industry has gone out to sea to seize foreign markets, bringing Chinese-style milk tea to overseas friends, and allowing distant children to miss their hometown while drinking milk tea. However, as the overseas shops of tea brands are not as popular as in China, even if many foreign students want to buy a cup of milk tea to comfort themselves, it is sometimes difficult to find their favorite milk tea shop on the street.

However, overseas, there are not often milk tea shops, Starbucks often have. "eager for milk tea" students think of Starbucks customized service.

As a result, many people have developed a special formula for milk tea based on Starbucks' existing materials, "Black Tea+2 Pump Brown Sugar+2 Pump Pecan Syrup+Whole milk+Heavy Cream", that is, adding sugar and milk to a black tea drink, which is somewhat similar to the conventional ingredients of milk tea in China.

After drinking, the experimenters who placed orders with this formula said that the black tea in the drink mixed with strong milk flavor, tasted very close to black sugar pearl milk tea, and many people called it "my concubine Pingti." they think that this customized drink is very much like the overlord tea they drink in China.

For a while, foreign students from all over the world who wanted to drink milk tea seemed to see a glimmer of hope and went to the surrounding Starbucks to place an order to try, and on this basis derived milk tea formula suitable for Canada, Japan and other stores. They took a hard sip of the drink they had just made, and could not help feeling that they finally drank the familiar milk tea in a foreign country.

However, as more and more people try to follow suit, the evaluation of this custom drink is also increasing. After drinking it, some people think that although the raw materials and production methods used in custom drinks are very similar to those of Chinese milk tea, they really do not taste exactly like the overlord tea concubine they remember.

Starbucks stores mostly use British breakfast tea, which is lighter than the raw materials used by domestic tea brands, according to netizens. After adding milk and syrup, the taste of tea in the drink is masked, making it more difficult to taste.

Users who prefer strong tea bluntly say that the whole cup of custom-made drinks are like a mixture of sugar and milk, "very watery", "unlike my overlord tea concubine", "whose overlord coffee table is outrageous with pecan and black syrup" and "one I have tried is the taste of black sugar milk, which has a strong syrup flavor and no tea flavor at all."

In fact, the taste is not exactly the same for everyone. Starbucks' customized service can freely match all kinds of materials in the store, colliding with some people's impression of "the taste of tea concubine", evoking the memories of foreign students who have not had milk tea for a long time.

But for users who can often drink authentic milk tea, the so-called "hidden menu" is nothing more than a sweet drink blended with milk syrup, which can't hit the eight strokes of my concubine, let alone a "flat substitute". Many people say that if the children are eager for milk tea, they might as well go to the store to buy a cup of real milk tea to "drink a thousand sorrows." After all, Pentium can never replace the authentic version.

Picture from: Xiao Hong Shu

Disclaimer: some of the pictures in this article come from the network, and some of the contents of the website, such as pictures, we will respect the origin of the original copyright, but due to the large number, there will be individual pictures and texts not in time to indicate, please forgive me. If the original author has any disputes can contact the website to deal with, once verified we will immediately correct, by the "coffee workshop" collation and editing, reprint please indicate, if infringement, please inform deletion, thank you ~!

FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou China, selling freshly roasted beans from its own farm in Yunnan as well as dozens of carefully selected single-origin beans from around the world for both pour-over and espresso. The products deliver consistently excellent quality and great value, with shipping within 24 hours. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers, and the beans are now available online at the Tmall 。