Starbucks Dubai Chocolate Matcha Latte Recipe

Starbucks' Iced Dubai Chocolate Matcha is unsweetened matcha with pistachio sauce, milk and ice, topped with chocolate cream cold foam and a salted brown-buttery topping. To make one at home, whisk a teaspoon and a half of matcha with hot water, stir it with a tablespoon of pistachio cream and three quarters of a cup of milk over ice, and float a chocolate cold foam on top.

What the Iced Dubai Chocolate Matcha is

Starbucks added two Dubai Chocolate drinks to its winter menu on 6 January 2026, for a limited time. Its announcement says they were inspired by the chocolate bar and by the chain's most viral drinks of 2025. The matcha version combines unsweetened matcha, pistachio sauce, milk and ice under a chocolate cream cold foam and a salted brown-buttery topping. The second drink is an Iced Dubai Chocolate Mocha, built on espresso.

The recipe here is a reconstruction of those parts, not Starbucks' formula, and MakeFoodLovely is not connected with Starbucks.

Recipe

Iced Dubai Chocolate Matcha

A reconstruction of Starbucks' Iced Dubai Chocolate Matcha — matcha and pistachio cream over ice and milk, with a chocolate cold foam and a toasted, salted kataifi topping. One 16-ounce drink.

5.0 (1)Print

Prep

8 min

Cook

3 min

Total

11 min

Serves

1

Cuisine

American

Ingredients

• For the topping:
• 1 teaspoon unsalted butter
• 1/2 ounce kataifi (shredded phyllo dough)
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• For the matcha:
• 1 1/2 teaspoons matcha powder
• 2 tablespoons hot water
• 1 tablespoon pistachio cream
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 1 cup ice cubes
• For the chocolate cold foam:
• 3 tablespoons heavy cream, cold
• 1 tablespoon whole milk
• 1 tablespoon chocolate syrup

Instructions

1. Melt the butter in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the kataifi, crumbling it into short pieces, and the salt, and stir for 2 to 3 minutes, until golden brown and crisp. Tip it onto a plate.
2. Whisk the matcha with the hot water in a small bowl until no lumps remain. Whisk in the pistachio cream.
3. Fill a 16-ounce glass with the ice. Pour in the 3/4 cup of milk, then the matcha mixture, and stir.
4. Froth the cream, the tablespoon of milk and the chocolate syrup with a handheld frother for 20 to 30 seconds, until thick but still pourable.
5. Pour the foam over the drink and sprinkle the toasted kataifi on top.

Nutrition

Calories:

515

Calculated from the ingredient quantities above using the USDA FoodData Central database, then divided by the number of servings. It is an estimate and will vary with the exact products you use.

Pistachio sauce at home

The nearest thing to a pistachio sauce in a shop is pistachio cream, the sweet spread sold in jars. Whisked into the warm matcha it dissolves; dropped into cold milk it stays a lump. The pistachio cream on this site is a homemade one.

A pistachio syrup works as well and gives a thinner, sweeter drink. Use 1 tablespoon.

Why the matcha is whisked first

Matcha is a fine powder that clumps in cold liquid. Two tablespoons of hot water, not boiling, turn it into a smooth paste that mixes into the milk. The matcha in the description is unsweetened, so the sweetness of the drink comes from the pistachio and the foam.

For other Starbucks matcha drinks on this site, see the strawberry matcha.

The kataifi on top

Dubai chocolate is a chocolate bar filled with a pistachio and tahini cream and chopped kadayif, strands of filo pastry. That pastry, also sold as kataifi, is what the topping here is made of: toasted in butter with salt until brown.

Starbucks does not say what its salted brown-buttery topping consists of; the kataifi is this recipe's stand-in. The kataifi shredded dough page covers the pastry itself, and the Dubai chocolate bar on this site puts it inside the chocolate.

A mocha in the same style

For a coffee version, replace the matcha and hot water with 2 shots of hot espresso, and stir 1 tablespoon of chocolate syrup into them together with the pistachio cream. The foam and the topping stay the same.