Starbucks Medicine Ball: Why This Might Be The Most Infuriating Drink For Baristas

Starbucks is well known for its ability to customize your order. The chain famously claims to have over 170,000 ways to make a drink personal to you. Custom ordering is so essential to the Starbucks experience that ordering a non-customized frappuccino is even on our list of 14 mistakes people can make while ordering at Starbucks. So why is this one drink drawing ire from Starbucks baristas around the world on Reddit? The answer is in the name: medicine ball.

Unfortunately, the name makes promises the drink can't keep. Popularized as "medicine ball" by social media in 2016, the drink started as an off-menu item of green tea with chamomile, spearmint, and other flavors, with steamed lemonade and honey. It's now an official drink with the name honey citrus mint tea. In a Reddit post on r/Starbucks, a user stated "I was told today by my shift lead that we can't allow customers to order the Honey Citrus Mint Tea by calling it the 'medicine ball' because it puts us at risk for being sued if people claim to use it as real medicine." Another user claimed, "we actually had a customer not long ago ask what kind of medicine was in the medicine ball and they got mad about 'false advertising' when we told her that drink has ... no medicine."

It sounds like the tea may join the list of 8 drinks Starbucks employees secretly don't like prepping. Another Reddit user who claims to work as a Starbucks barista said, "for me it's the people who think that we add an unknown dose of unknown cold medicine to their drink like Starbucks is some kind of drive up pharmacy."

The drink started out being touted online as a way to fight the common cold. People claim it will clear out a lingering cough and make the body feel much better. Starbucks doesn't use any pharmaceuticals in its products, so what could be making people feel this way? Drinking hot green tea with herbs, honey, and lemon has long been a remedy for the common cold — especially since honey is a natural cough suppressant.

But, the question remains: Is the honey citrus mint tea a healthy drink? The grande version at Starbucks currently has 30 grams of sugar. This is over the daily recommended amount for women, and just under the recommended amount for men, according to the American Heart Association. The drink contains sweetened lemonade which is better as a summertime thirst quencher than a cold-buster. If you're concerned about your sugar intake, you might be better off making tea at home with fresh lemon, or ordering a plain tea and upgrading it on your own!