• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Email
  • Instagram
  • RSS
  • YouTube
TVV-Logo-for-bright-bg

The Viet Vegan

Vegan. Feminist. Nerd.

  • Home
  • About
    • Privacy Policy
  • Recipe Index
  • Work With Me
    • Press

Vegan Copycat Starbucks Matcha Green Tea Frappuccino

March 7, 2016 by Lisa Le 10 Comments

Jump to Recipe

Vegan Starbucks Copycat Matcha Green Tea Frappuccino | The Viet Vegan | Save your wallet and make your own at home!

I’ve been trying to juggle posting daily on Instagram, posting regularly (at least once a week) on here, and also recording and editing videos for YouTube, reorganizing my apartment to accommodate Eddie moving in—on top of working full time. I’ve had less downtime that usual but you know what? It’s actually been a blast. I thrive on being busy. I’ve been the most productive at work, I posted my first weekly video, shot and edited my second one, and shot my third one! I’ll be posting three types of videos:

  1. What I Ate In A Day—which are basically vlogs where I show you what I eat on that day in particular
  2. Recipe videos—essentially a visual version of these posts but with my personality and the cooking process), and
  3. Vegan Talks—general discussion about vegan topics, or just topics I’ve wanted to cover but aren’t super appropriate for a food blog, like menstruation. But I have some plans for talking about relationships and dating as a vegan, vegan pantry staples, cruelty-free makeup, etc.

Vegan Starbucks Copycat Matcha Green Tea Frappuccino | The Viet Vegan | Save your wallet and make your own at home!

If you folks could go over and subscribe to my channel, that would be amazing! I’m sort of at a sad number right now and it would mean a lot to me if you folks subscribed. A lot of it will end up complementing the content I already post on here (like a video tutorial of that red velvet cupcake that people either have great success or DISASTROUS success)—and any of the new recipes I post on the channel I’ll be posting concurrently here anyway.

I’ve had a couple readers ask if I’ll continue the blog here. Don’t worry! I definitely will. Writing has always been my go-to medium for sorting out my brain, while photography is my passion, and video is an extension of things I always wanted to do but just never had the guts or knowledge to go and do. Believe it or not, but back in high school I had a vlog channel full of rambles and rants, pretty much video versions of this space here, but less focused, and way more ridiculous because I was 17/18 and only just figuring out who I was. The videos are all private now so you can’t find them, but every few years I remember it exists and watch a couple videos because my baby brother was adorable in them.

But enough about the YT channel. Now about the draaamaaaa in my life.

Vegan Starbucks Copycat Matcha Green Tea Frappuccino | The Viet Vegan | Save your wallet and make your own at home!

It’s not so much drama as it is just managing my time and finances by making adult decisions that I probably should have made sooner than later. Grad school debt is ongoing and just kind of bleeding me dry every month and I’m buying things that I can’t really afford but I bought anyway because I deemed them necessary—like a lens (for my videos), a high speed blender (because my Ninja blender was THE ABSOLUTE WORST), some bookshelves because the ones I bought 8 years ago were teetering under the weight of all of my books and cookbooks.

I’m not living within my means and it’s honestly a stupid thing I’m doing. For a better part of a year I was going to Starbucks about once or twice a week getting a latte which was quickly depleting my bank account. I love espresso and Starbucks, but my wallet was not having it. So I’ve resolved to stop going to Starbucks when I can make my own drinks at home! I don’t have an espresso maker, but honestly, coffee makes me super jittery and I don’t really drink it anyway. The drinks I would buy from Starbucks regularly were the matcha lattes and frappuccinos, and those are so easy to make at home.

In my last video on YouTube, I showed you my rough recipe for a matcha latte, but I’ll be shooting it and posting an actual recipe for it in the near future. But what most people probably want is this frothy, matcha frappuccino for a frosty treat that won’t burn a hole in your wallet every time you want to treat yourself.

Vegan Starbucks Copycat Matcha Green Tea Frappuccino | The Viet Vegan | Save your wallet and make your own at home!

FYI, for those who have no idea what I’m talking about, matcha is a type of green tea that is supposedly much better for you because you’re ingesting the leaf instead of steeping it. Instead of a leaf-based tea to brew, matcha tea is the dried and powdered form of special green tea leaves. Traditionally it’s whisked and dissolved into water and consumed ceremonially in Japanese culture, but as we do in the Western world, we take something beautiful and add a ton of sugar. But it’s delicious both ways, so let’s just call this a win.

In terms of sweetener, I tried a bunch of different things. Liquid sweetener dissolved and blended into your non-dairy milk before you add ice is best, but you can use stevia drops, sugar syrup (which is what bubble tea places will do), maple syrup, brown rice syrup, agave nectar, or whatever will do the trick. I’ve tried it with maple syrup, which at first imparted a very woody taste on top of matcha’s gentle earthy flavour, but I got used to it and kind of grew to like it after a while.

Honestly, my favourite sweetener has had to be honey. It imparts the most natural sweetness to the earthy matcha that doesn’t accentuate it but rather mellows it. While I know it’s not vegan, I consume raw honey for allergy relief (for the record, I avoid all commercial honey and don’t buy products that contain honey in them). I just have about 3 pots of raw honey from my aunt that I got maybe 3 years ago and I still haven’t used them up. Because of my allergy situation, I think I probably will continue using raw honey, but I’d only buy it from local apiaries, but I haven’t done full research on that just yet so I’d appreciate it if we kept the criticism at a minimum.

If you are choosing to avoid honey (which in all honestly, I would recommend anyway because bees are essentially farmed insects that are treated poorly on the regular), I liked the results from simple sugar syrup, maple syrup, and agave nectar. I tried using dates too, but it was too gritty and too sweet if I used one whole date for one drink. I’d use maybe half a date per serving, maybe even less. But I also don’t like things too sweet, so you do you, folks.

I recommend purchasing a medium quality of matcha—since you’re not consuming it ceremonially, you can enhance the flavour of the matcha with creamy non-dairy milk, ice, and sweetener. Don’t bother buying the crazy good stuff, just get the pretty good stuff. Don’t bother with the garbage $3 matcha like I did. General flavour is there, but the quality is awful. You get what you pay for when it comes to matcha.

For my matcha bubble tea ages ago, I used a really low quality matcha, but I splurged at got one of those $40 (ouch) tins of 2nd harvest matcha. But, that one tin has already made me about 20 matcha lattes, and since I get soy lattes at $5.82 per drink, I’ve already saved myself about $75 by making them at home.

So if you too share my addition to Starbucks’ matcha drinks, make some of these to save yourself some $$$, but don’t get me wrong. If I’m on the road, I’m still going to buy a matcha latte. Sometimes you’ve just got to treat yourself—just don’t overdo it or else you’ll be broke AF.

Continue to Content
Yield: 1 serving

Vegan Copycat Starbucks Matcha Green Tea Frappuccino

Vegan Starbucks Copycat Matcha Green Tea Frappuccino | The Viet Vegan | Save your wallet and make your own at home!
Prep Time 5 minutes
Total Time 5 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 tsp matcha green tea powder
  • 1 cup soy milk
  • 1-2 tsp agave nectar/simple syrup/date syrup/sweetener of choice
  • 1 heaping cup of ice
  • Whipped topping (either whipped coconut cream, soy whip, or frozen coconut whip works well!)

Instructions

  1. Add matcha powder, soy milk, sweetener of choice, and ice to a blender. Blend until smooth and completely homogenous.
  2. Transfer to a glass and top with your whipped topping of choice. Add a straw, and enjoy!
© Lisa Le
Cuisine: Vegan / Category: Drinks
Spread the love:
error
fb-share-icon
Tweet
fb-share-icon

Filed Under: Drinks, Gluten-Free, Vegan recipes Tagged With: copycat, frappuccino, green tea, latte, matcha, starbucks, vegan

About Lisa Le

Lisa is the thirty-something, nerdy, procrastinating, feminist blogger and photographer behind The Viet Vegan. She loves spicy foods, noodles, and food in bowls.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Brianna H says

    March 7, 2016 at 8:00 PM

    I know what I’m making tomorrow mid-morning or afternoon. I love matcha!
    It is so tempting to go to starbucks, but I’m right with you on the “trying to live within my means” thing. ? This recipe will come in handy!

    Reply
    • Lisa Le says

      March 7, 2016 at 11:53 PM

      Good luck! I hope you’re living within your means better than I am XD Enjoy the frapp! <3

      Reply
  2. Patricia says

    March 7, 2016 at 11:51 PM

    Not living within my means is definitely a struggle I am currently faced with but you live and your learn right?

    ALSO, I was gifted a giant jar of raw wildflower honey from here:

    http://www.uoguelph.ca/honeybee/honey-forsale.shtml

    Reply
    • Lisa Le says

      March 7, 2016 at 11:54 PM

      Yuuuup! And holy smokes that is a lot of honey.

      Reply
  3. Alex says

    March 17, 2016 at 5:15 PM

    I’d love to know what type of matcha you splurged on. Thanks for the recipe! I was cruising around looking for good easy St. Patrick’s Day recipes today, and this looks great. I have cheap matcha, but I’m sure it will do for now.

    Reply
    • Lisa Le says

      March 20, 2016 at 11:04 PM

      I used Do Matcha, but I’ve heard great things about David Tea’s matcha as well =) Cheap matcha just sort of tastes bitter and sad, now that I’ve experienced high quality matcha I don’t think I can ever go back to the cheap stuff ><

      Reply
  4. Joanne says

    December 21, 2016 at 1:42 PM

    Love your simple recipes! Also, just thought I’d let you know, under “instructions,” it says “whipped topic of choice.” I was hesitant to say anything, and then I read that you love grammar in your “About” section. ;)

    Reply
    • Lisa Le says

      December 21, 2016 at 1:49 PM

      AAHHH THANK YOU :D Omg this recipe has been up for so long and no one told me XD

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Welcome!

Lisa

Xin chào! Welcome to my food blog. Thanks for visiting, reading, and enabling my obsession with food and photography.

  • Bloglovin
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

looking for something?

Recipe index sidebar
YouTube-Graphic-side
Vietnamese recipe index button
  • Popular
  • Recent

Footer

What are you craving?

Recipe index footer

Looking for something?

Find me in other places :)

  • Bloglovin
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Find me on YouTube!

youtube_watch

View

Jan 13

Open
Just a new What I Eat In a Day vlog where I make many bready things and get extremely excited about my new water bottle 🤣Featuring the vegan spicy negi ramen kit from @crafty_ramen (gifted), my go-to daal, sourdough naan experiments and discard bread experiments!It's live on the channel now 😊
https://youtu.be/QuagXSKuknE#thevietvegan #thevietveganrecipes #whatveganseat #whatieatinaday #kwvegansociety #hamiltonvegan #hamont #veganfood #veganuary2021
1036 29
View

Jan 9

Open
Henlo it's been a very busy week on my end but I've been working hard to try to get back up to 2x a week uploads again. So last week I posted two bookish videos and today I posted my sourdough discard chocolate chip cookies!
🍪
Crisp edges, chewy centre, crunchy flakes of @maldonsalt on top...MMM. A perfect way to use up some sourdough discard!
🍪
Video is up on the channel, and recipe is on the blog🥰https://bit.ly/2LilQk3#thevietvegan #thevietveganrecipes #whatveganseat #sourdoughdiscard #sourdough #🍪
705 17
View

Dec 16

Open
[AD] Tis the season for finger food and delicious bites! So many vegan charcuteries tend to be nut-heavy, but for those who are allergic to many things like me, you might enjoy this pizza snack board I created for @whollyveggie with some marinated mushrooms (recipe on the blog), fresh veggies, and olives, and vegan salami to snack on, with pizza sauce to dunk in!
🍕
I used the Classic Cheese, Margherita pizzas, and Naked Cauliflower Crust that are frozen and delicious for a snack board. I honestly kind of forgot that they were gluten-free because I love a nice, crisp thin crust and this was tender enough to yield a nice, chewy bite while being golden and crisp!
🍕
Find the recipe on my blog, deets on your closest Wholly Veggy retailer on their website, and please tag me and @whollyveggie in your homemade pizza snack boards! I'd love to see how you customize yours :)
🍕
#thevietvegan #whollyveggie #veggiefullmeals #respecttheveg #whatveganseat #veganfoodshare #bestofvegan #vegancharcuterie #thevietveganrecipes https://bit.ly/3gTF22N
604 37
View

Nov 28

Open
Feeling like I got my mojo back! Also coincidentally my cycle ended, so maybe that had something to do with this week of super low energy and negativity 😂❣️😭Today I cleaned out the fridge, treated myself to a schnickers square from @covenhamilton and made some Instant Pot phở because Eddie's been missing @saigonlotustoronto and we haven't been able to go all year (for obvious reasons).You can find the recipe on the blog. I'll put a swipe up link since the link in bio sometimes take a second to populate, or you can use the search bar at the top of my blog! Hope you are all having a relaxing weekend ☺️Instant Pot Phở: http://bit.ly/2DdKATA#thevietvegan #thevietveganrecipes #whatveganseat #veganfoodshare #veganpho #vietvegan #vietnamesefood
1587 30
View

Nov 26

Open
A lot of you are celebrating Thanksgiving today, and while this Instant Pot red curry lentil and potato stew is not a Thanksgiving recipe, I wish you all the best this weekend and kindly remind you that Thanksgiving has a lot of colonial, traumatic and genocidal origins of Indigenous peoples across North America.
🍂
Eddie loves Thanksgiving food (I mostly like stuffing/dressing and mashed potatoes haha) so I understand that nostalgia and love for Thanksgiving fare, but I hope you also take this time to continue your education in Indigenous history, culture and how the exploitation and trauma still affects Indigenous cultures and peoples today.
🍂
I always worry I'm being like a bummer to remind you of this year after year, but I'm on my own journey of education and unlearning the history we were erroneously taught and all the convenient gaps that didn't tell the whole story. We are all unlearning together.
🍂
And while it is important to learn about the heavy history, I also implore you to appreciate and support Indigenous art and cultures. I recently finished reading Son of a Trickster by Eden Robinson and I have many more books by Indigenous authors on my to-read list!
🍂
Enjoy the time with your loved ones (hopefully very safely, and hopefully you've quarantined before seeing each other). It can be hard to deny our families who have varying levels of concern, but know that the precautions you take now show the people you love and the communities we're in how much you care. Virtual celebrations aren't quite the same but are a nice stand-in for being alone.
🍂
Also fyi this is an Instant Pot red curry lentil and potato stew I shared last week. On YouTube and the blog! https://bit.ly/3nCsQWm
🍂
#thevietvegan #thanksgiving #thanksliving #veganthanksgiving #thevietveganrecipes #whatveganseat #veganmealprep
361 4
View

Nov 7

Open
I feel like it's no suprise to anyone that my favourite colour is green and that this green ramen is an herbaceous, vibrant way to eat your greens!
💚
PLUS I use peas in the sauce to add some lean, green protein so you don't feel hungry again in 20 minutes like you would if you just ate a pack of instant noodles 😂
💚
Recipe is linked in the bio, although it might take a sec to repopulate but it's also in my Asian recipe highlight (although it's not really Asian... it's just green saucy noods but my regular recipe highlight is getting too long 😅)
💚
#thevietvegan #thevietveganrecipes http://bit.ly/2w7pXE4 #whatveganseat #veganfoodshare #bestofvegan #eatyourgreens #vegan #vegansofig
1083 18
View

Oct 30

Open
Inari pockets with vegan crab salad from my last hiking vlog 🍱🌳🍂 some of y'all might remember that this package of tofu pockets was similar to the package I have bought before and I realized too late that they had clam and oyster extract in the seasoning.
🍁
Because I was going on a hike with a few omnis, I figured it was worth just using it anyway to feed them so it didn't go to waste, and that way Eddie and I didn't have to eat it all on our own. This dilemma can be controversial, and I've had people (well, one persistent person) hate on me for drinking a can of Arizona Iced Tea after I bought it and realized too late that it had honey in it.
🍁
Y'all, being vegan is point blank a privilege. Choosing what to eat, being informed enough to want to choose vegan, having access to fruits and vegetables that don't cost $$$$, having time to cook, having the time to LEARN how to cook, it is all overlapping privileges that enable any of us to eat vegan. Throwing food away because of a mistake you made even though it is perfectly edible is not helping the animals (and it is so wasteful!)
🍂
Obviously in this case, it was just extract and not actually pieces of meat, dairy, or egg, so it was easier for me to eat it without trying to think about it. And honestly, I'm unsure if I would be able to eat anything non-vegan without getting sick (because I got hives after eating the tofu pockets 🙃), but it's nuanced and eating a non-vegan product you bought by accident doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't discount your veganism. You simply learn from it and keep trucking on.
🍁
Anyway, I explain this in the video but have a watch it you want to see how I made the inari and the beautiful trees on the hike 😁#thevietvegan #thevietveganrecipes https://youtu.be/aBY97WhZCw4 #inarisushi #whatveganseat
1008 35
View

Oct 27

Open
From before my last manicure 😅 vegan tempura batter for super crispy, light and simple fried goodness! Recipe is live on the blog :) the last few days have been pretty busy but hopefully I will be back on testing upcoming recipes soon!Recipe will be in the swipe up in stories, and linked in the bio (although sometimes it takes a sec to populate 😅)#thevietveganrecipes https://bit.ly/34y9lYv #thevietvegan #whatveganseat #veganfoodshare #vegantempura #bestofvegan #veganeats #eeeeeats #feedfeedvegan
624 15
View

Oct 15

Open
I've been eating this nearly every day for the past four days 😂 bánh hỏi thịt nướng chay! I've been meaning to develop a nem nướng chay recipe to go along with this but this week was not the week haha.
🥗
Did anyone else grow up eating platters upon platters of bánh hỏi at long weekend parties and family gatherings? I swear these take up less space in my body than actual noodles because I can always eat an alarming amount 😂
🥗
Check out the new video on YT and the recipe on my blog, swipe up links in my stories!
🥗
#thevietveganrecipes https://bit.ly/343B7vP #thevietvegan #whatveganseat #vietnamesefood #vietvegan #veganfoodshare #letscookvegan #banhhoi #vietkieu
1364 35
View

Oct 9

Open
Dinner last night was a little late, but I feel like bánh hỏi is one of those things you can eat a million of and you won't feel too full 😂
💛
Bánh hỏi is vermicelli noodles and starch in flat layers that are then cut into rectangles and rolled and dressed with a bit of green onion oil. The process used to be so tedious and annoying that I never thought it was worth making (even though I love eating it), but lately I've seen them premade and cut into those rectangles!
💛
There are so many methods: my mom boils them for 1 minute, then strains and then lays them flat to cool. The package said soak for 10 min and then steam for 10 min, but that was such a hassle. One of you suggested using the microwave and I was like oh, DUH that's how I learned to make them in the first place. So I soaked for 10 min, then microwaved for 80 seconds, et voila! They were perfect.
💛
I served them with mở hành, pan-fried soy curls in my thịt nướng marinade (I'll link that recipe in my bio/stories), and with my favourite nước mắm chấm chay! Delicious! I will buy more bánh hỏi this week so I can film a video tutorial for next week!
💛
#thevietveganrecipes https://bit.ly/3f1C3Uh #thevietvegan #whatveganseat #veganfoodshare #vietkieu #Vietnamesefood #vietvegan #chay #banhhoi
879 23
TVV logo

Copyright© 2021 · The Viet Vegan · All rights reserved

  • Recipe Index
  • Privacy Policy
  • Work With Me
  • Press