How Much Sugar Is in a Chai Latte?

Most cafe chai lattes start from a sweetened concentrate, so the sugar is decided before anyone touches your cup. Here is actual brewed masala chai — whole spices, exact amounts, a batch concentrate that keeps — plus an honest grade for what each spice does.

A Grande (16 oz) Starbucks Chai Latte carries 29 grams of sugars, and the concentrates most cafes and most home kitchens pour from carry their own load before anyone touches the cup — Tazo's Classic Chai Latte lists 24 grams of added sugar per 3/4-cup serving, and Oregon Chai's Original lists 28 grams per 6 fluid ounces, both on the manufacturers' own labels. Brewed from whole spices instead, the same drink comes in around 6 grams of added sugar per 12-ounce cup. The sugar was never coming from the chai. It was coming from the bottle the chai arrived in.

That distinction is the whole article, because it changes what the fix is. You are not giving up a sweet drink; you are taking back a dial that a factory set months ago. Built the original way — black Assam tea simmered with crushed fresh ginger, green cardamom, a cinnamon stick, whole cloves, cracked black peppercorns and a fragment of star anise, then finished with milk and about a teaspoon of sweetener per cup — an 8-ounce cup carries roughly 4 grams of added sugar. Nobody craves cane sugar syrup. People crave the spice, the warmth, and the ritual of holding the cup.

One note on the name, said once and without fuss: chai simply means tea, so "chai tea latte" is literally "tea tea latte." Masala chai — spiced tea — is a South Asian preparation with centuries of history behind it, brewed by simmering rather than steeping. Everything below treats that method as the standard. The concentrate is the departure.

This article is educational, not medical advice. It is a recipe, not a treatment for anything. If you are pregnant, nursing, or taking medication, talk to your clinician before adding concentrated spice preparations to your routine.

Key statistics at a glance

24 g

Added sugar per serving, Tazo Classic Chai Latte concentrate

Tazo / Unilever SmartLabel

28 g

Added sugar per 6 fl oz, Oregon Chai Original concentrate

Oregon Chai, 2026

29 g

Sugars in a Grande Starbucks Chai Latte

Starbucks published nutrition, 2026

25 g / 36 g

AHA daily added-sugar limit, women / men

American Heart Association, 2026

24 grams of total sugars, all 24 of them added — 50% of the FDA Daily Value — in one 3/4-cup (180 mL) serving of Tazo Classic Chai Latte concentrate, per Tazo's own SmartLabel listing; prepared with milk as directed, the drink comes to 200 calories and 33 grams of total sugars
28 grams of total sugars, all 28 added, in one 6-fluid-ounce serving of Oregon Chai Original Chai Tea Latte Concentrate, per Oregon Chai's published nutrition panel — with organic dried cane sugar syrup listed as the second ingredient, ahead of the tea
190 calories, 31 grams of carbohydrate, 29 grams of sugars and 55 mg of caffeine in a Grande (16 oz) Starbucks Chai Latte; the Iced Grande lists 31 grams of sugars (Starbucks published nutrition, 2026)
"Just 2 grams of sugar from honey" in the Premium Chai blend Starbucks introduced on March 3, 2026, moving the sweetness out of the base and into separately pumped Classic Syrup (Starbucks, 2026)
25 grams a day for women, 36 grams for men — the American Heart Association's added-sugar ceilings; Americans aged 2 and older average 12–13% of daily calories from added sugars against the AHA's preferred 6%
50 grams is the FDA's Daily Value for added sugars, and the FDA's definition explicitly counts sugars from syrups and honey as added — one tablespoon of pure maple syrup carries 12.1 grams (USDA FoodData Central), which is why this recipe measures sweetener in teaspoons
53.0% of US adult calories came from ultra-processed foods in August 2021–August 2023, with sweetened beverages among the top five sources (CDC/NCHS Data Brief 536, 2025)

The concentrate problem

Here is the structural issue with the cafe version, and it has nothing to do with the barista. Almost every "chai latte" sold in the United States is assembled from a pre-sweetened liquid concentrate. The sugar was decided months earlier, in a factory, at a ratio you cannot see and historically could not change.

Read the labels, in the manufacturers' own words:

Tazo Classic Chai Latte: "An infusion (of water, black tea, black pepper, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, star anise, natural flavors), cane sugar, honey, ginger juice, natural flavors, vanilla extract, citric acid." Sugar isn't first — but the thing ahead of it is mostly water, and cane sugar plus honey occupy slots two and three. The panel settles the argument: 24 grams of added sugar in a 180 mL serving.
Oregon Chai Original: "Water, Organic Dried Cane Sugar Syrup, Organic Black Tea, Organic Vanilla Extract, Organic Spice Extracts, Organic Honey, Citric Acid, and Natural Flavors." Here the sweetener genuinely does come second — ahead of the tea, and ahead of the spices, which arrive as extracts rather than as spices.
Starbucks Chai Latte: "MILK, CHAI TEA CONCENTRATE [AN INFUSION OF (WATER, BLACK TEA, BLACK PEPPER, GINGER, CARDAMOM, CINNAMON, CLOVES, NATURAL FLAVOR, STAR ANISE), HONEY, GINGER JUICE, NATURAL FLAVORS, CITRIC ACID], CLASSIC SYRUP [SUGAR, WATER, NATURAL FLAVORS, POTASSIUM SORBATE, CITRIC ACID]."

That last one is worth sitting with, because it changed recently and in the right direction. On March 3, 2026, Starbucks moved to a Premium Chai blend the company describes as "crafted with just 2 grams of sugar from honey," explicitly so that customers could "add or remove pumps of classic syrup to increase or decrease sweetness" and adjust spice intensity separately. The sweetener is now a distinct line on the ingredient list rather than something dissolved into the base. A Grande still lists 29 grams of sugars as standard — Starbucks does not publish an added-sugar breakdown, and some of that total is lactose from the milk — but for the first time the number is genuinely yours to move.

That is the whole thesis in miniature. The problem was never the spice. It was that someone else held the spoon.

Commercial vs. homemade, honestly

	Starbucks Grande Chai Latte (16 oz)	Tazo concentrate latte, as directed (~12 oz)	This recipe (12 oz)
Calories	190	200	~130
Total sugars	29 g	33 g	~15 g
Added sugars	Not published separately	24 g	6 g
Sweetener	Honey in the concentrate, plus Classic Syrup (sugar)	Cane sugar and honey	1 tsp jaggery, maple, or honey per cup
Spices	In the concentrate, plus natural flavors	In the infusion, plus natural flavors	Whole, cracked, simmered
Sweetness you control	By the pump, since March 2026	No	By the half teaspoon

Added sugar in one chai latte, against a whole day's limit

Oregon Chai concentrate latte	28g
Tazo chai latte, as directed	24g
AHA daily limit, men	36g
AHA daily limit, women	25g
This recipe, 12 oz	6g

Source: Manufacturer nutrition panels (Tazo/Unilever SmartLabel; Oregon Chai, 2026); American Heart Association added-sugar limits, 2026

One Oregon Chai latte spends 112% of a woman's entire daily added-sugar allowance from the AHA and 78% of a man's. A Tazo one spends 96% and 67%. Neither of those is a dessert; both are what a person drinks at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday because they like cardamom.

Below, the first eleven items make two 8-ounce cups. The last nine make a refrigerator batch of unsweetened concentrate — about four cups, or eight servings.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups (360 ml) water
1 cup (240 ml) whole milk, or oat milk
2 teaspoons loose-leaf Assam black tea, or 2 black tea bags
1 1/2-inch piece fresh ginger (about 15 g), unpeeled, smashed flat with the side of a knife
4 green cardamom pods, cracked open
1 cinnamon stick (2 inches), preferably Ceylon, snapped in half
3 whole cloves
4 black peppercorns, cracked
1 point broken from a whole star anise pod (about 1/8 of a pod)
2 teaspoons jaggery, pure maple syrup, or honey — 1 teaspoon per cup
1 pinch fine sea salt, about 1/16 teaspoon
For the concentrate batch: 4 cups (960 ml) water
For the concentrate batch: 8 teaspoons loose-leaf Assam black tea
For the concentrate batch: 4-inch piece fresh ginger (about 40 g), smashed flat
For the concentrate batch: 12 green cardamom pods, cracked open
For the concentrate batch: 2 cinnamon sticks (2 inches each), snapped in half
For the concentrate batch: 8 whole cloves
For the concentrate batch: 12 black peppercorns, cracked
For the concentrate batch: 1/2 star anise pod
For the concentrate batch: 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

Instructions

Crack the spices first: press the cardamom pods, peppercorns and cinnamon stick under the flat of a heavy knife until the pods split and the stick fractures. Smash the ginger the same way rather than mincing it. You want the cell walls broken, not the spice powdered.
Combine the water, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns and star anise in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat.
Reduce to a steady simmer and cook the spices alone for 5 minutes, uncovered. This is a decoction — hard, woody spices need time and heat that tea leaves cannot survive.
Add the tea. Simmer 2 minutes only, then take the pan off the heat. Longer extraction here buys you tannin and astringency, not flavor.
Add the milk, the sweetener and the salt. Return the pan to medium heat and bring it back to a bare simmer — small bubbles at the edge, never a rolling boil, which scalds the milk and dulls the aroma.
Hold at that bare simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, watching the pan. It will try to climb the sides. Pull it off the heat when it starts to rise.
Aerate it: pour the chai from the pan into a heatproof jug and back again, three or four times, from as high as you can manage without decorating the counter. This is what a chai wallah is doing when they pull the stream — it cools the drink to drinking temperature and pushes aroma forward.
Strain through a fine sieve into two cups. Taste before adding anything. If it needs more, add sweetener a half teaspoon at a time.
For the concentrate batch: combine the water and all the cracked spices in a saucepan, bring to a boil, then simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.
Add the tea and salt, simmer 3 minutes, then remove from the heat and let it steep 5 more minutes off the burner.
Strain through a fine sieve, discard the solids, and cool the liquid uncovered for no more than 20 minutes before refrigerating — perishable food should not sit at room temperature for more than two hours (US FDA).
To serve from the batch: heat 1/2 cup concentrate with 1/2 cup milk and 1 teaspoon sweetener to a bare simmer, aerate, and pour.

Why you crack the spices instead of grinding them

Whole spices hold their volatile oils inside intact plant cells. Cracking ruptures those cells and lets the oils meet hot water; grinding does the same but also multiplies surface area enormously, which is why ground spice smells loud in the jar and tastes flat three months later. The processing literature reflects this — a 2021 review in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Research on the key issues in spice grinding treats particle size distribution and volatile oil retention as the field's two dominant concerns, with grinding heat a known cause of oil loss. For a drink you simmer for fifteen minutes anyway, cracked-and-whole buys the extraction without the oxidation. Evidence: strong as food-processing science.

The order in the pan follows from the same physics. Ginger, cardamom seed and bark are dense and need boiling water and minutes; tea leaf is thin and gives up its polyphenols fast, and past about two minutes at a simmer what you keep extracting is tannin. Spices first, tea second, is two different extraction problems solved at two different times.

Milk is doing chemistry, not just softening the color. Adding milk to black tea forms polyphenol–protein complexes: casein — specifically casein, not whey — binds the catechins and theaflavins so fewer of them reach the bitterness and astringency receptors. That is why masala chai tastes round rather than sharp, and much of why so little sugar is needed: the bitterness sugar usually gets hired to cover has already been removed. The flip side, honestly: the same binding cuts polyphenol bioaccessibility, which a 2011 study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry measured directly. Drink chai because it is good, not for its catechins. Evidence: strong for the mechanism, and strong against the "antioxidant tea" framing once milk is in.

Aroma raises perceived sweetness, and chai carries more of it than any other latte. Odor-induced sugar reduction is now a working formulation strategy: a 2024 review in Trends in Food Science & Technology describes work in which 0.2% added vanilla aroma let a low-sugar yogurt shed 25% of its sugar without losing consumer acceptability, and notes the effect runs primarily through retronasal olfaction — aroma reaching the nose from inside the mouth as you swallow. Six spices simmered in milk is a very large retronasal signal. That is the real reason a teaspoon is enough. Evidence: moderate, and specific to perception rather than metabolism.

The pinch of salt is not seasoning. In their 1997 paper in Nature, Breslin and Beauchamp showed that sodium filters flavors selectively, suppressing bitterness more than sweetness so that sweetness is released rather than created. In a cup holding tea tannin, clove and black pepper, that is a real amount of bitterness taken off the top. It is the ingredient most people skip and the one that costs nothing. Evidence: strong, mechanistically well characterized.

Do the spices actually do anything? A grade for each

This is where wellness writing usually goes to die. Every spice in this pot has a research literature, and those literatures are of wildly different quality. Traditional South Asian medicine has used these spices for a very long time, and that is worth saying as history — it is not the same thing as a clinical claim, and we are not going to blur the two.

Ginger — the best evidence in the pot, at doses you are not drinking. A 2024 umbrella review in Advances in Nutrition scanned seven meta-analyses of ginger in pregnancy. Across studies using 450–2,500 mg/day, all four meta-analyses examining nausea scores against placebo found a reduction, with ginger performing comparably to vitamin B6; three of four found no significant effect on vomiting frequency, so the benefit is specific to nausea. No major maternal adverse effects and no fetal abnormalities were reported. The authors are equally plain about the weaknesses: substantial heterogeneity, and AMSTAR-2 ratings for the included reviews running from low to critically low. The honest translation is that those trials used concentrated capsules, and fresh ginger is 79.5% water by weight (USDA FoodData Central). Fifteen grams of rhizome split across two cups is food, not a dose. Evidence: strong for nausea at supplemental doses; not established at culinary amounts.

Cardamom — real randomized trials, small and geographically narrow. Heydarian and colleagues pooled eight RCTs and 769 participants in Food Science & Nutrition (2023), reporting reductions in hs-CRP (SMD −0.60), IL-6 (WMD −1.25), TNF-α (WMD −2.10), diastolic blood pressure (WMD −0.90 mmHg) and systolic blood pressure (WMD −0.54 mmHg). Note the size of those blood-pressure numbers: under one millimeter of mercury. The authors flag that every included trial was conducted in Iran, that heterogeneity was significant, and that the number of studies is small. Evidence: limited — statistically detectable, practically tiny, from a narrow trial base.

Cinnamon — mixed, and we are not making the blood-sugar claim. A 2025 umbrella review in Frontiers in Nutrition covering 21 meta-analyses and 139 comparisons found cinnamon reduced fasting blood glucose (SMD −0.61, upgraded to "highly suggestive" on reanalysis), but the HbA1c signal across twelve comparisons was smaller (SMD −0.26), rated mostly weak to non-significant, and became non-significant on the authors' own reanalysis; they state that caution is warranted for HbA1c and HOMA-IR. So: cinnamon is in this recipe for aroma and for what aroma does to perceived sweetness. One practical caution if you drink chai daily — cassia cinnamon (the common supermarket kind) averages about 3,000 mg of coumarin per kg with measured peaks near 10,000, and Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment sets a tolerable daily intake of 0.1 mg/kg body weight, which a 60 kg adult reaches at roughly 2 grams of cassia a day. A stick in a two-cup pot sits well under that. Ceylon cinnamon, which contains far less coumarin, is the better default for a daily ritual. Evidence: mixed for glycemic effects and unclaimed here; strong for aroma's role in perceived sweetness.

Clove — almost entirely preclinical. Eugenol performs impressively in a test tube: a 2025 in vitro study in ACS Omega reported roughly 80% DPPH radical scavenging and FRAP values of 200–300 µM Fe²⁺ equivalents for eugenol and clove essential oil at 25 µg/mL. Human clinical trials are thin to absent. In chai, clove is a flavor decision, and a bossy one — three is a quantity, five is a mistake. Evidence: weak in humans; in vitro and animal work only.

Black pepper — a genuine mechanism, routinely oversold. The famous number comes from Shoba and colleagues in Planta Medica (1998): in human volunteers, 2 grams of curcumin alone produced serum levels that were undetectable or very low, and adding 20 mg of piperine raised bioavailability by 2,000%. Be precise about what that sentence contains — one compound (curcumin, not "nutrients" generally), one isolated dose of piperine, a small volunteer group, and a 1998 result not independently replicated at that magnitude. The mechanism behind it is well documented: Bhardwaj and colleagues showed in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (2002) that piperine inhibits both P-glycoprotein and CYP3A4, with IC50 values of 15.5 µM against digoxin transport and 74.1 µM against cyclosporine A. That is also the reason for caution rather than excitement: the same inhibition means piperine near 20 mg/day can raise plasma levels of CYP3A4 substrates such as carbamazepine and midazolam, CYP2C9 substrates such as diclofenac and phenytoin, and P-glycoprotein substrates such as fexofenadine. Four cracked peppercorns in a pot is nowhere near a supplement dose — but piperine capsules, alongside a narrow-therapeutic-index medication, are a pharmacist conversation. Evidence: strong for the mechanism, narrow for the famous figure, and an interaction pathway as much as a benefit.

Star anise — this one is a safety note, not a benefit. Chinese star anise (Illicium verum) is GRAS. Japanese star anise (Illicium anisatum) contains anisatin and is neurotoxic, and once dried the two cannot be told apart by eye. In September 2003 the FDA advised consumers not to consume star anise teas after roughly 40 reported illnesses, including 15 infants. Buy from a spice merchant you trust, use a fragment rather than a whole pod, and do not give chai to infants. Evidence: no benefit claim made; the adulteration risk is documented.

The honest summary: you are drinking something delicious whose ingredients have, variously, decent evidence at doses you are not consuming, weak evidence, and no human evidence at all. That is fine. A drink does not have to be a supplement to be worth making well.

Is a homemade chai latte actually healthier?

It contains less added sugar. That is the claim, and it is the only one worth making.

The value is not that a spice is doing metabolic work in your cup. It is that a daily 24-gram habit is a pattern, and patterns are what the population data is about. Ultra-processed foods supplied 53.0% of US adult calories in August 2021–August 2023, with sweetened beverages among the top five contributing categories (CDC/NCHS Data Brief 536, 2025). Rebuilding one daily ritual from whole ingredients moves one line in that ledger — a small, durable change in the terrain you feed most mornings rather than a dramatic one, which is the only kind that survives February. Consistency over intensity.

If digestion is what you are working on, chai is worth running as an investigation rather than an assumption: milk, caffeine and clove are variables you can isolate one at a time. Our guide to daily habits for gut health covers testing rather than restricting — and the 3 p.m. pull toward something sweet is a signal about the day's structure, not a character flaw.

Can you make it without any sugar?

You can make it with far less. You cannot make it sweet without added sugar, and it matters that we say so directly.

Jaggery, honey, maple syrup, coconut sugar and date syrup are all added sugars. The FDA's definition covers sugars added during processing along with sugars from syrups and honey, and the Daily Value is 50 grams. A tablespoon of pure maple syrup carries 12.1 grams of sugar and 52 calories (USDA FoodData Central); a teaspoon carries about 4. Jaggery is unrefined cane sugar with some molasses left in — a different flavor, not a different metabolic category. The advantage here is arithmetic, not alchemy: one measured teaspoon instead of twenty-four premixed grams. There is more on where the sweeteners actually sit in our food chart.

Total vs. added sugars in a chai latte

Oregon Chai latte, as directed	37g (Total sugars)	28g (Added sugars)
Tazo chai latte, as directed	33g (Total sugars)	24g (Added sugars)
This recipe, 12 oz	15g (Total sugars)	6g (Added sugars)

Source: Tazo/Unilever SmartLabel and Oregon Chai published panels; milk contribution and recipe values calculated from USDA FoodData Central

The gap between the two bars in each pair is milk sugar — lactose, which is not added sugar and which you cannot avoid without leaving the milk out. That is the part of the total worth ignoring. The dark bar is the part you control.

Two things genuinely reduce how much you need. First, brew the spices longer rather than sweeter — a 10-minute decoction tastes substantially sweeter than a 3-minute one at identical sugar. Second, do not skip the salt. Between those two levers, most people land at 1 teaspoon per cup and stop noticing.

How long does homemade chai concentrate keep?

Five to seven days, refrigerated, in a clean airtight jar — and it is worth knowing why the number is so much shorter than for a spice syrup.

Sugar syrups preserve themselves by lowering water activity — binding free water so microbes cannot use it. Most bacteria need a water activity above 0.91 to grow and most yeasts above 0.88, while molds survive down to roughly 0.65 (UC Master Food Preserver Program, 2025). A maple spice syrup sits far below the bacterial threshold, which is why it keeps for weeks. Chai concentrate is the opposite kind of liquid: essentially brewed tea, mostly water, with nothing dissolved in it at preserving concentration and a water activity near 1.0. It is not preserved. It is refrigerated, which is a delay, not a defense.

So treat it like a cooked leftover, because that is what it is. Strain the solids out (particulates give mold a foothold), use a jar washed in hot soapy water and dried, refrigerate promptly rather than leaving the pan on the stove — perishable food should not sit at room temperature beyond two hours, or one hour above 90°F, per the FDA — and keep it on a middle shelf rather than in the door. Discard at the first sign of cloudiness, ropiness, film, or a sour smell. Frozen in an ice cube tray, it gives you a month of two-minute mornings.

Leaving sweetener out of the batch is deliberate. At these concentrations it would not extend shelf life anyway, and it means every cup gets sweetened to your taste on the day rather than to a decision you made last Sunday.

Can it be made dairy-free?

Yes, with one real adjustment. The casein–polyphenol binding that softens tea astringency is specific to dairy protein, so plant milks will not blunt the tannins the same way. Compensate at the brew, not with sugar: cut the tea simmer to 90 seconds and add 30 seconds to the spice decoction.

Oat milk is closest for body and froths reliably. Check the added-sugars line first — enzymatic hydrolysis of the oat starch leaves many commercial oat milks measurably sweet, and if yours is, drop to a half teaspoon.
Whole-fat canned coconut milk, thinned 1:1 with water, is the richest option and carries spice aroma extremely well.
Almond milk is thinnest and leans hardest on the salt. Use unsweetened.
Soy milk brings protein and is the most dairy-like structurally, but can separate at a real boil — hold it at a bare simmer.

Caffeine holds steady across all of them: USDA and FDA reference values put brewed black tea near 47 mg per 8-ounce cup, against 55 mg in a Grande Starbucks Chai Latte. If you drink chai in the afternoon and sleep poorly, isolate that variable before blaming the spices.

Keep the ritual, rebuild the ingredients

The commercial chai latte was never a bad idea. It was a good drink with the sweetness decided upstream and locked in — which is exactly the pattern worth noticing across a pantry, not just a cup. Twenty-five minutes and six whole spices gets you the same warmth with a quarter of the added sugar and full control of the dial. If you want the swap tracked alongside the rest of the day's habits, the Sakred app is built for precisely that kind of unglamorous, repeatable consistency.

Frequently asked questions

How much sugar is in a Starbucks chai latte?

A Grande (16 oz) Starbucks Chai Latte lists 190 calories, 31 grams of carbohydrate and 29 grams of sugars; the Iced Grande lists 190 calories and 31 grams of sugars, per Starbucks' published nutrition information in 2026. Starbucks does not publish a separate added-sugar figure, and some of that total is lactose from the milk. The ingredient list shows honey in the chai concentrate plus a separate Classic Syrup whose first ingredient is sugar — and since the March 2026 Premium Chai change, you can order it with fewer syrup pumps or none.

Is a chai tea latte the same as masala chai?

Not in method, which is where the sugar difference comes from. Chai means tea, so "chai tea latte" is redundant; masala chai means spiced tea and is made by simmering whole spices and tea together, then adding milk. A cafe chai latte is typically a pre-sweetened concentrate combined with steamed milk. Same family of flavors, very different construction.

Can I drink masala chai while pregnant?

That is a question for your clinician, not a recipe post. What the evidence shows: ginger has the strongest trial support of anything in the pot for pregnancy-related nausea, with a 2024 Advances in Nutrition umbrella review finding consistent reductions in nausea scores at 450–2,500 mg/day and no major maternal or fetal adverse effects reported — but those are supplement doses, not culinary ones. Chai also contains caffeine, roughly 47 mg per 8-ounce cup of brewed black tea by USDA and FDA reference values, which is a separate consideration in pregnancy.

Do I have to use star anise?

No, and it is the one spice worth leaving out if you are unsure of your source. Chinese star anise is generally recognized as safe, but it can be adulterated with the neurotoxic Japanese species, which is visually indistinguishable once dried — the FDA advised consumers against star anise teas in September 2003 after roughly 40 reported illnesses. Omit it, or use a small fragment from a merchant you trust. The chai will be slightly less licorice-forward and otherwise unchanged.

The Healthy Chai Latte: 6 Grams of Sugar Instead of 24