Ube latte recipe: which powder, mix or syrup to use, compared

Use a single-ingredient ube powder. Ube latte recipes are written for unsweetened powder at about 3 g per glass, so the colour comes from the yam and you decide how sweet the drink is. Our first pick is Big Moca Premium Ube Powder: its label reads “100% Purple Yam (Ube)” and states the dose, 1 teaspoon (3 g) per latte.

The other formats change the recipe. A sweetened latte mix already contains sugar, so the sweetener step falls away and only 9% to 20% of what you scoop is ube. A syrup or concentrate skips the paste step, but the labels in our data put the purple down to added colouring. A liquid flavouring is dosed in drops and, on most labels, coloured with synthetic dyes. Powders sold as ube that are really purple sweet potato ask for a larger scoop: Biomatea states 1 tablespoon (10 g) per drink.

The table sets the formats side by side, using each product’s own ingredient list.

A single-ingredient powder such as Big Moca’s is the only type in the table where ube is all you add. Our ube latte powder comparison compares ten powders and mixes for this use, and the powder vs extract page covers the liquid formats in more detail.

The base recipe is the same hot or iced: make a smooth paste, sweeten it, add milk. The summary below follows the makers’ directions. We have not tested it in a kitchen.

1. Stir 3 g (1 level teaspoon) of 100% ube powder into a little hot water until there are no dry lumps.
2. Add sweetener to taste. Pure ube powder is unsweetened.
3. Top up with about 200 ml of hot, frothed milk, or with cold milk over ice for an iced ube latte.

For an ube matcha latte, pour a matcha shot over the iced version. The Jade Leaf barista handbook gives 1 teaspoon (2 g) of matcha shaken with 2 oz (about 60 ml) of cool water. Big Moca sells a culinary matcha at €14.99 per 100 g, so 2 g costs about €0.30.

For the full method, go to the source: Big Moca’s ube latte recipe has the step-by-step hot, iced and layered matcha versions with photos, its own ratio (3 g of powder, 30 to 60 ml of warm water, 150 to 180 ml of milk) and fixes for a lumpy or watery latte.

The ube in a homemade latte costs between about €0.12 and €0.60 per glass with a 100% powder, depending on the brand and pack size. Milk and sweetener are not included. The one syrup with a stated dose lands in the same range, but most of what it adds is water, sugar and colouring.

Big Moca is our first pick for this recipe because its label lists ube only, states a per-latte dose and offers a 1 kg pouch at €70, which brings the ube in each glass to €0.21. A 100 g pouch makes about 33 lattes at 3 g; the 1 kg pouch about 333. For a full dose chart, see how much ube powder to use.

With a 100% powder, most of the calories in an ube latte come from the milk and the sweetener, not from the 3 g of ube. The table works them out from USDA FoodData Central values per 100 g: whole milk 61 kcal, 2% milk 50 kcal, granulated sugar 387 kcal and honey 304 kcal.

For the ube itself we use an estimate. USDA lists raw yam (Dioscorea spp.) at 118 kcal and 69.6 g water per 100 g. If drying removed only the water, 3 g of powder would add about 12 kcal. The nutrition table on your own pack is the better figure.

Sweetened mixes and syrups bring their own sugar. We have no nutrition panel for them in our data, so they are not in the table; read the pack.

We do not know. The Takeout reported on 27 January 2026 that Starbucks’ spring menu would add a limited-time Iced Ube Coconut Macchiato from 3 March, and wrote that it did not have the ingredient list. We have not seen the chain’s ingredients or nutrition figures, so we cannot say whether it uses ube powder, a syrup or a flavouring.

If you want a coconut version at home, make the ube paste as above and use a coconut drink as the milk. Check the ingredient list of any ube syrup you add: the syrups in our data list colourings, such as E163 in Monin’s concentrate and E122 with E133 in Terifico’s syrup.