Today, Starbucks is launching two new spring drinks: the Iced Lavender Oatmilk Latte and the Iced Lavender Cream Oatmilk Matcha. As someone who leans a bit more towards Dunkin’ on the affordability side of the coffee chain war, I have to admit that the lavender matcha has gorgeous coloring that I’d be willing to pay a bit extra for.
As someone who worked in the coffee industry for six years (and loved it), I know that any upcharge on flavors higher than 50 cents is crazy, especially if they are made in-house. It all starts with a simple syrup, which requires boiling equal parts sugar and water — pretty affordable ingredients, I think. From there, there are a lot of different but easy ways to add flavor, including lavender.
How to make lavender syrup
The hardest part about making lavender syrup is just finding the lavender. This recipe calls for dried lavender buds (no stems). Cutting from the lavender plant you have sitting on your windowsill won’t do — at least as it is. If you’re feeling super hands on, you can cut the stems of your lavender and hang them out to dry in a dark place for 10 days before picking the buds off the stems. But otherwise, you can find dried lavender on Amazon or some wholesale websites. They usually come in big packs, so you’ll have some extra for lavender tea.
First, measure out one ounce of dried lavender into a bowl. Then, steep the lavender in eight to 10 ounces of boiling hot water for 10 minutes. If you oversteep, the flavor could become too bitter. Strain the lavender out so you’re left with a liquid lavender essence that’s dark purple in color. Then, add the essence to a sauce pan with one cup of white sugar and one cup of water (the ingredients for simple syrup). Boil the mixture until it’s slightly thick, let it cool, and add it to your favorite coffee or cocktail! Store your syrup in a bottle or other container in the refrigerator.
How to make the Starbucks lavender cream
In terms of the beautiful, fluffy purple of Starbucks' lavender cream, one of our Spoon writers found that it was made by mixing a powder into sweet cream cold foam. So it may be hard to replicate at home because the coloring of that powder may be enhanced with artificial colors. My suggestion is to make the lavender syrup like normal, and add a bit of it to a normal cold foam recipe. As a refresher, make cold foam at home by combining heavy whipping cream and vanilla extract, and frothing it. If you really want that pastel purple color, food coloring may be the way to go.
What else can I make?
This method of steeping an ingredient and combining it with a simple syrup recipe is a hack to help you make any flavor that could elevate a mocktail, cocktail, coffee, or chai. In fact, chai concentrate is similar to this recipe, it just requires more spices and ingredients to steep, and because it’s a concentrate, you don’t add water when you boil it with sugar.
But back to the easy stuff. To make brown sugar syrup, just make a normal simple syrup with brown sugar instead of white sugar. Some of my favorite flavors that have a similar recipe to the lavender are mint, basil, and orange (steep orange rinds). You can also add a dash of spices to your boiling syrup to add flavor; one of my favorites I’ve ever made is orange cardamom. This syrup tasted great in a regular coffee, chai, or a mocha, because the orange paired so well with the chocolate. Flavors like caramel can take longer just because making caramel takes longer, but you can buy a bottle of caramel syrup for your at-home coffee bar for under $10.