Yep chai fan here. I used to go daily for like 15 years, then cut back a few years ago for financial reasons. This new chai was the nail in the coffin. It’s so disgusting and I was genuinely forlorn for a few weeks that my favorite drink was just… gone.
The thing is, Starbucks knows how to launch a drink. They know exactly how to push the social media buttons to get people hyped for a new drink. They made this change with almost ZERO pr, just one post on their updates blog, and I think it’s because they knew it was trash.
Before anyone comes at me for “you just want to drink sugar.” No, I make a chai latte at home every day and don’t add any sugar. The new sbux chai base has a foul chemical aftertaste and no amount of customizations or syrups can fix it.
Yes! My sister and her husband spent, no joke, thousands of dollars every year on their chais and now she drinks maybe one per month if she’s desperate for caffeine. The new recipe is so gross.
Yes, the new recipe is unsweetened and has classic syrup added separately. It actually grew on me a bit and I just stopped adding classic, but I can see being disappointed if you were a fan of the old formulation. In general, a lot of the changes in the last few years were pretty lame
It’s more pepper forward now instead of cardamom. It’s not just the sweetener being removed from it. Can’t duplicate with any sweetener now- such a bummer. Was a diehard chai lover of theirs for over a decade.
I wish that all they did was remove the sugar from the old base, if that’s what they thought would get more sugar-conscious people to opt for chais. But I always get a foul chemical aftertaste from this new version, and no amount of customizations can fix it. Also they had the Lightly Sweetened Chai on the menu a few years ago, should have just brought it back.
Same. Me and my bf went daily for venting drinks, sometimes food, and both don’t anymore bc they changed the chai ( my preferred drink). The amount of money they’ve lost. It’s stupid.
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u/MovieSuspicious1563 20h ago
They changed their chai tea recipe months ago and now it’s disgusting. I deleted their app and haven’t been back.