Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I tried one yesterday and though a little sweet for my taste, it wasn't awful. I finished it. Probably because it brought me back to "tea" when I was little, when my mom doused it with sugar and milk. It's definitely not a tea snob's tea. More like a hot sweetened milk drink with a side of tea.

Sounds good. I'm extremely picky about my tea, but I drink it room temp or cold versus hot, so I'll have to check this stuff out iced. I hate soy milk and all the spices like vanilla, cinnamon, etc. dumped in teas everywhere these days (although, I do like cardamom, but sparingly) that this sounds like this will be refreshing.

While you are entitled to your opinion, I think this is a fairly flawed argument. 1.) Any latte is just espresso with flavor and milk. You could very easily order two shots of espresso with a shot of vanilla for $1.50 cheaper than a latte and then just add the milk yourself. Part of the reason why people like latte's is because the milk is steamed. It's hot milk with foam. The hot milk keeps your drink warm. And the foam is just fun. 2.) Part of the appeal of the London Fog is the vanilla flavor shot. Vanilla flavor is just a different taste than any of the free sugar alternatives. 3.) If your issue is that your tea isn't steeping, you can very easily (as I do with my barista) ask that they steep your tea for a minute before adding the steamed milk.

But honestly let's face it. Anything you get at Starbucks is over priced and part of buying a drink from there is getting the convenience of specifying your specific drink to a degree that few other coffee/tea shops can. Kudos to Starbucks for figuring out another way to make money off of us.

so, after years of learning to rattle off "soy) earl grey tea misto with no water and sugar-free vanilla" i can finally just say "london fog"? like i always have at second cup? stellar!

as someone who eschews black tea, what i like about this hot beverage is that it has some bite, but still comes out sweet if you don't let it steep too long. also, the way i can hold the tea bag over the drink and let it drop gorgeous caramel brown drops onto the foam. fun!

Thaat actually looks pretty good.. i like tazo

If you really want foam for your tea, just give the milk jug a good shake before pouring it! I did this by accident the other morning and was highly amused at the foamy milk.

Starbucks has really been the victim of some brand bullying by Dunkin' in McDonalds and yes they are a bit overpriced but thats part of the draw. It's a different kind of quality. It seems like lately they are grabbing anything from every corner to try and capitalize on.

I did try the London Fog the other day w/o the vanilla shot and I really liked it. The steamed milk [I used soy] was really a nice touch.

My office brews their coffee but I don't normally go their for coffee unless it's the summer and I'm in the mood for some Caramel Macchiato. I'm usually a patron of their Chai Tea Lattes.

It seems like everyone's on the pick on Starbucks train lately I hope they can pull through. But I do agree they have some branding/marking issues to work out.

@clasek (and others),
Regarding my expectations: from the picture and the tagline, I was expecting something more like a chai latte. When Starbucks makes a chai, it's an integrated, tea-flavored drink. Since it's already flavored, there's no waiting for it to steep, and since there's no teabag, there's nothing to get in the way of the foam. So when I read "tea latte," I anticipated a chai-like drink. Several commenters mentioned the importance of the milk foam. I'm a HUGE fan of milk foam, and if the drink had been as foamy as pictured, I would have been pleased. However, I found that the wandering tea bag made the foam disappear rapidly, and though I ordered three different lattes at three different Starbucks, I never got more than a few stray bubbles. Perhaps I just got unlucky--but then again, the point of somewhere like Starbucks is consistency.

This isn't to say that it wasn't tasty--just to say that the steamed milk and tea strength, in my opinion, leave something to be desired.

When I go to Starbucks I always get a small coffee black. I think it throws them off kilter. I guess I should be a little more adventurous and try the tea.

Good tea isso important and hard to find, no matter how you're going to treat it. Tazo is not good tea.

Full disclosure, I'm a Starbucks barista. Not one of those cloyingly perky ones, but a knowledgable one.

I have a few things to say...
I'm not a huge fan of the new tea lattes either, and the thought has definitely crossed my mind that they just keep coming up with the most ridiculous new drinks and it's getting sad. This is the reason we've become the big bad starbucks everyone loves to hate.

That said, this idea of a macgyvered latte as being a brilliant way to get the same experience is utterly ridiculous. Milk when aerated tastes and feels vastly different than it does when it is not aerated (but heated) or when it is cold, like in the condiment bar carafes. If you ever get a chance on some slow sunday afternoon you're hanging out in sbux, you should ask a barista to let you try out the difference between them.

On another note, when you order a coffee or a tea with the intention of pouring half of it out into the trash can, you're not going to win any fans of the employees in your neighborhood store. Seriously, they're just trash cans. They're not super-insulated trash bags that are meant to hold a half gallon of liquid. All we ask is that if you do buy an earl grey or an awake tea with the intention of making your version of a tea latte, just ask us to fill it half full... please?

I tried the Black Tea Lattes this weekend at my local Starbucks, and I must say I loved it. I am a fan of their Pike's Place coffee and I had never tried the teas. I think the barrista made a combo Black Tea/Chai Latte, and though I found it a bit sweet, the Tazo tea (Awake) was bold and flavorful. I've been drinking Twinings English Breakfast for many years, but bought a box of Awake and Twinings Chai tea yesterday. I'm going to try to reproduce the Starbucks experience at home. Any suggestions on how to reproduce the recipe?