How to Order a Medicine Ball at Starbucks in Person, in the App, or at Home

Hoping to understand how to Order a Medicine Ball at Starbucks in Person, in the App, or at Home? Check out these expert recommendations to guide you every step of the way.

The drink began purely as a customer-invented hack. During the mid-2010s, Instagram accounts and barista forums shared variations of a soothing brew made by combining two distinct Teavana tea bags with lemonade and honey packets. Customers claimed it relieved congestion, dubbing it the "Cold Buster" and later the "Medicine Ball."

By October 2016, store managers reported baristas manually opening individual single-serve honey packets and tearing into multiple tea tins per order, causing bottlenecks at the register. The combination became so popular that corporate management officially added it to the permanent menu in spring 2017 under the standardized title Honey Citrus Mint Tea.

Because Starbucks is an FDA-regulated food service provider rather than a pharmacy, store policy prohibits employees from claiming the beverage cures ailments or marketing it under drug-adjacent terms. If you pull up to an intercom and ask for a Medicine Ball, seasoned employees understand instantly. Newer trainees, however, occasionally freeze or search their POS screens in vain because the phrase does not exist on their point-of-sale touchscreens.