What Do the Lines on Starbucks Cups Mean?

If you’ve ever ordered an iced drink at Starbucks, chances are you received it in a plastic cup with little black lines along the side. The barista may even have written your name on one of those lines—a practice that is being phased back in after it was halted during the pandemic. But those lines aren’t just for writing. They actually play a big role in the creation of Starbucks drinks.

Each line on the Starbucks cold beverage cups represents a certain amount of liquid. This way, baristas can make your drinks both consistently and efficiently without having to use external measuring cups (or worse, just eyeballing it) to get the coffee, milk, and ice ratios correct. The exact amount of liquid each line indicates depends on the size of the cup. The first line indicates four, six, and eight ounces of liquid on a tall, grande, and venti cup, respectively. The second and third lines, however, both measure four more ounces from the line below. This system means that drink recipes can also be memorized easily. An iced chai tea latte, for example, consists of a simple formula of chai concentrate poured to the first line, milk to the second, and ice to the third line.

These measurement markers were part of a major overhaul of Starbucks’s cold cups that was announced in April 2024. In an effort to support accessibility and the efficiency of baristas, these lines are now in black and white as opposed to solid black, helping them to stand out better against both dark and light-colored drinks. This was one reform among many; some other standout changes include a 10 to 20 percent reduction in the cups’ plastic content and new raised dots on the vessels that indicate size for those with limited vision.

Still, Starbucks’s plastic cups may be on their way out entirely. In response to local mandates limiting single-use plastics, the company has begun replacing traditional cold cups with opaque, compostable paper cups and lids in stores across 14 states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, South Carolina, Virginia, and Washington). These new cups have been met with some criticism from Starbucks fans who prefer to see the drink they’ve ordered through a clear cup or who don’t enjoy the experience of drinking from paper lids. However, the cups are also, notably, line-less, meaning that if the current compostable design becomes the norm nationwide, the cups’ built-in measuring system may soon be a thing of the past.

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