Order This Cold Foam Swap To Enjoy A Less Sweet Starbucks Drink

Starbucks is many things: Reliable, convenient, ubiquitous, trendy. It's also impossibly overwhelming, with so many loaded, customizable drinks on offer throughout the year. And while delicious, many of the flavored coffees are incredibly sweet, with sugar levels that might shock you, depending on your order. However, there is one simple way to make your drink slightly healthier without sacrificing on taste: Swap out the syrup for a flavored cold foam.

Starbucks has a number of cold foams on offer, ranging from classic vanilla sweet cream to salted caramel and chocolate, and there are typically seasonal options like pumpkin available too. The cold foams are actually made with the flavored syrups Starbucks uses in its drinks, but it's typically only a few pumps, and the cream and milk help mellow out the sweetness.

It leads to a silky, slightly sweet result that tastes delicious without being overwhelming, and since cold foam lies at the top of a drink, it's the first thing you taste, removing the need for any sugar in the actual coffee. Plus, the foam mixes into the coffee slowly as you drink it, improving the mouthfeel and overall flavor.

With this in mind, you might want to adjust your Starbucks order accordingly. If you're ordering a flavored cold brew, there will probably be multiple pumps of syrup involved. For example, the default for a grande salted caramel cold brew is two pumps of syrup in the coffee. That's on top of the syrup in the cold foam, which equals a whopping 26 grams of sugar in just one serving. So, remove at least one pump from your order, or all of it if you really want to tone it down and make a healthier Starbucks drink.

You can add cold foam to a regular iced coffee, too, or a shaken espresso. Every flavor tastes great on a regular iced latte, or you could pair some combinations together. You could double up and get an iced pumpkin latte with pumpkin cream cold foam, or go for a classic vanilla topped with sweet cream. Our favorite cold foam works especially well with flavors like caramel brulée, sugar cookie, and cinnamon dolce.

There are dairy-free options available too, and a new range of protein cold foams. Again, you'll want to pull back on the pumps in your drink — one should do it depending on the size — and you can always ask your barista for suggestions. The best thing to do is start simple and sample as you go — you'll be a cold foam pro in no time.