How many calories are in chai tea?
A standard 8 fl oz cup of hot chai made with milk is 122 calories, or 51 calories per 100 g. That is the drinkable version - brewed tea, milk, spice and sugar in the cup. The dry mix in the tin reads far higher per 100 g, but you never drink it dry.
You'd need to walk about 24 minutes to burn the 122 calories in a 1-cup (240 g) serving.
How long does it take to burn off chai tea?
A 1-cup (240 g) serving is 122 kcal. Enter your weight and the amount you ate to see how long it takes you to burn that off:
lb
| Activity | Time to burn 122 kcal |
|---|---|
| Walking, brisk | 24 min |
| Cycling, moderate | 15 min |
| Swimming, moderate | 17 min |
| Jogging | 14 min |
| Weight training, moderate | 27 min |
Times are for a 155 lb adult at a steady pace; change the weight to see yours. The amount is set to the portion in the text (240 g); change it to what you actually ate. BodyPal works this out from your steps automatically.
On this page
- Chai tea quick facts
- US servings, from one ounce to a 20 oz cup
- Concentrate, packets and powder
- Soy chai and the milk you pour
- Sugar is the row to watch
- How does chai tea compare?
- Most popular chai tea brands
- FAQ
Chai tea quick facts
USDA has no record called "chai." What it does have is FNDDS 2710506, "Tea, hot, with milk", from the 2021-2023 survey cycle, and that is the thing in your hand: brewed tea, sweetened, with milk stirred through it. Powders, pods and bottled concentrates describe a product on a shelf, not a cup on a table, so they live further down this page as variants.
One point of housekeeping before the table. This FNDDS release does not publish added sugars or trans fat for beverages, so those two rows are simply gone rather than guessed at - all the sugar you can see is in the total sugars row.
| Nutrient | Per 100 g | Per 1 cup (240 g) | % Daily Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 51 | 122 | — |
| Total fat | 1.05 g | 2.5 g | 3% |
| Saturated fat | 0.604 g | 1.4 g | 7% |
| Carbohydrate | 8.95 g | 21.5 g | 8% |
| Dietary fiber | 0.1 g | 0.2 g | 1% |
| Total sugars | 8.72 g | 20.9 g | — |
| Protein | 1.58 g | 3.8 g | 8% |
| Sodium | 20 mg | 48 mg | 2% |
% Daily Value is based on a 2,000-calorie diet.
Verified nutrition data
Numbers on this page come from USDA FoodData Central, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food composition database, and from manufacturer labels where a branded product is named. Last verified September 2026. How we verify our data →
Two more rows worth knowing: the cup carries 10 mg of cholesterol, 3% of the Daily Value, and 218 mg of potassium, about 5%. Sodium is a non-event here at 48 mg, well under a tenth of a teaspoon of table salt. If you are watching your sodium, chai is not the drink that will move it.
US servings, from one ounce to a 20 oz cup
| Serving | Weight | Calories |
|---|---|---|
| 1 oz | 28.4 g | 14 kcal |
| 1 cup, 8 fl oz | 240 g | 122 kcal |
| Tall cup, 12 fl oz | 360 g | 184 kcal |
| Medium cup, 16 fl oz | 480 g | 245 kcal |
| Large cup, 20 fl oz | 600 g | 306 kcal |
| Per 100 g | 100 g | 51 kcal |
The 8 fl oz cup is the USDA household measure. Everything else in that table - the ounce, and the 12, 16 and 20 fl oz cups - is our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure, treating the drink as roughly a gram per milliliter, not a USDA serving.
That arithmetic is the whole story of chai. Nothing about the recipe changes between the first row and the last; only the cup does. Order the largest size instead of a plain 8 oz cup and you have added 184 calories without adding a single new ingredient. At 306 calories, that large cup is about 15% of a 2,000-calorie day, spent on something you finish in ten minutes and rarely log. Government drink guidance in the MyPlate drinks section makes the same point in words; the table makes it in numbers.
Concentrate, packets and powder
Here is where per-100-g numbers mislead people. A tin of powdered chai mix reads 429 calories per 100 g, eight times the brewed cup, which sounds alarming until you notice that a serving is 28 g of powder, not 100 g of it.
| Version | Per 100 g | Typical serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hot chai latte with milk | 51 kcal | 1 cup, 240 g | 122 kcal |
| Chai concentrate | 100 kcal | 0.5 cup, 120 g | 120 kcal |
| Ready-to-drink chai latte | 75 kcal | 0.5 cup, 120 g | 90 kcal |
| Dry chai latte packet | 419 kcal | 1 packet, 31 g | 130 kcal |
| Powdered chai mix | 429 kcal | 2 Tbsp, 28 g | 120 kcal |
Read the last column and the spread collapses. Made up as directed, every one of these lands between 90 and 130 calories. The concentrate is the one to watch, because half a cup is meant to be cut with an equal pour of milk or water - if you pour it straight, you have doubled it before the milk arrives.
Brand labels tell the same story in different weights. David Rio Tiger Spice measures 2 Tbsp (28 g) for 120 calories, Caffe D'Vita the same, a Twinings chai latte K-Cup pod is 15 g for 50, and a Lipton chocolate chai mix scoops 1 Tbsp (13 g) for 45. The scoop, not the tin, is the number that matters.
Soy chai and the milk you pour
Swap dairy for soy and the cup barely moves. SILK Chai on soymilk is 53 calories per 100 g, so a 1-cup (243 g) serving is 129 calories - seven more than the dairy version, not fewer. It does bring 2.47 g of protein per 100 g against 1.58 g for tea with milk, which is the one row where the swap actually wins.
USDA publishes no survey record for chai made with oat milk, so there is no honest number to print for it here. What the records do show is that the milk choice shifts the total by single digits, while the cup size shifts it by hundreds.
Sugar is the row to watch
Do the arithmetic on the cup and it stops being a tea. Of the 122 calories, 21.5 g of carbohydrate accounts for about 86 of them, and 20.9 g of that carbohydrate is sugar. Protein and fat split the small remainder. In calorie terms this is a sweetened milk drink that happens to be flavored with black tea.
The label will not flag it for you. As the FDA's Daily Value guidance sets out, total sugars carry no Daily Value at all, so no percentage ever appears next to that row - and because this FNDDS record does not break out added sugars, there is no way to say from these numbers how much came from the sweetener versus the milk itself. Saturated fat is the only row here with any real weight: 1.4 g in a cup, 7% of the Daily Value, which climbs to about 18% if a 20 oz cup is your habit rather than your treat.
How does chai tea compare?
| Drink | Per 100 g | US serving | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chai tea, hot, with milk | 51 kcal | 1 cup, 240 g | 122 kcal |
| SILK Chai, soymilk | 53 kcal | 1 cup, 243 g | 129 kcal |
| Oregon Chai vanilla latte | 67 kcal | 0.5 cup, 120 g | 80 kcal |
| Oregon Chai spiced concentrate | 100 kcal | 0.5 cup, 120 g | 120 kcal |
Our take: the brewed cup is the lightest of the four per gram, at 51 calories per 100 g against 53, 67 and 100 for the packaged versions, so making it yourself is the cheapest route in calorie terms. If you want the smallest number in this table, that is the 80-calorie half cup of the vanilla ready-to-drink - but only because the serving is half the size, not because the liquid is lighter. For steady daily drinking, brew it and pull the sweetener back; for one indulgent cup, size is the lever, and dropping from a 20 oz to an 8 oz cup saves 184 calories with no change to the recipe at all.
Most popular chai tea brands in the United States
Ranked by how widely each product appears among foods sold in the United States, from the BodyPal food database of over 3.3 million products. Calories are the figures printed on each Nutrition Facts label, checked against USDA FoodData Central.
| Product | Calories (per 100 g) |
|---|---|
| David Rio Tiger Spice Chai | 429 cal |
| David Rio Orca Spice Chai | 361 cal |
| Oregon Chai Spiced Chai Tea Latte | 100 cal |
| Twinings Black Tea Chai Latte | 333 cal |
| Caffe D'Vita Spiced Chai Latte | 429 cal |
| Lipton Chocolate Chai Latte Mix | 346 cal |
Brand popularity: BodyPal food database. Nutrition: manufacturer labels / USDA FoodData Central.
Chai tea FAQs
How many calories are in a chai tea latte?
A standard 8 fl oz cup of hot chai made with milk carries 122 calories, which works out to 51 calories per 100 g. About 86 of those calories come from the 21.5 g of carbohydrate, mostly sugar from the milk and the sweetener. The tea itself contributes almost nothing.
How many calories in chai tea with milk?
The same 122 calories per 8 fl oz cup: the USDA record on this page is literally tea, hot, with milk, at 51 calories per 100 g. Pour a 12 fl oz mug instead and you are at 184 calories, since the number tracks volume, not brewing strength.
How much sugar is in a chai latte?
An 8 fl oz cup holds 20.9 g of total sugars, and a 20 fl oz cup 52.3 g by our own scaling from the USDA 100 g figure. FDA sets no Daily Value for total sugars, and this FNDDS record does not split out added sugars, so the label cannot color it.
Does chai tea have caffeine?
Yes - chai is built on black tea, so a 240 g cup carries caffeine, but the USDA record behind this page does not publish a caffeine value, so we are not putting a number on it. Decaf or rooibos versions exist; the 122 calories in the cup come from the milk and sugar either way.
How many calories in unsweetened chai tea?
Strip the milk and sugar out of the 122-calorie cup and almost all of it goes: 86 of those calories come from 21.5 g of carbohydrate, the rest from 2.5 g of fat and 3.8 g of protein. USDA lists no separate record for plain brewed chai, so we give no figure for it.
Is chai tea good for weight loss?
At 122 calories a cup it is a snack, not a free drink - two a day is 244 calories, about 12 percent of a 2,000-calorie day. If you are counting, the lever is size and sweetener: the same tea in a 20 fl oz cup runs 306 calories.
How many calories in a large 20 oz chai latte?
A 20 fl oz cup is about 600 g and 306 calories, our own arithmetic from the USDA 100 g figure of 51 rather than a USDA serving. That is 15 percent of a 2,000-calorie day and 52.3 g of total sugars, before any extra pump of syrup.
How many calories in chai concentrate?
Half a cup (120 g) of Oregon Chai spiced concentrate is 120 calories at 100 per 100 g, and that half cup is meant to be cut with an equal pour of milk or water. The ready-to-drink version is lighter at 75 per 100 g, or 90 calories for the same half cup.
Similar foods
- Bubble Tea — 239 cal per drink
- Apple cider — 114 cal per cup
- Protein Shake — 156 cal per cup
- Root beer — 152 cal for 12 fl oz glass
- Tonic Water — 124 cal per can or bottle (12 fl oz)
- Sweet tea — 119 cal for 12 fl oz glass
Count it without the math
Point the camera at the cup and BodyPal counts the chai for you, milk and sweetener included.
