The craziest drink Anna Sitar has ever ordered at Starbucks consisted of a pump of everything — peppermint, dark caramel, light caramel, raspberry and cinnamon dolce.
She didn't like it. In fact, the content creator says it's probably the worst thing she's ever tasted from the coffee chain. But for her TikTok series, "Another Day, Another Starbies," in which she orders Starbucks drinks recommended by her followers or baristas themselves, she knew she needed to try it.
"Raspberry was in it and it's a coffee, and I was like that's not right," the 26-year-old tells TODAY.com.
But if you’ve ever stumbled across Sitar on social media, you know her videos extend far beyond Starbucks reviews.
Her channels are filled with videos sharing her day-to-day life with her followers, from "get ready with me" videos to walking the red carpet for the "Spider-Man: No Way Home" movie premiere. And recently, she even opened up about her journey dealing with acne.
But Sitar's platform of 12.3 million followers on TikTok and 1.5 million on Instagram wouldn't exist if she hadn't sat in her car during the pandemic and reviewed Starbucks drinks on TikTok. In her eyes, this whole journey happened by accident, or perhaps fate.
'Another Day, Another Starbies' ... *excited squeal*
It all began during lockdown. Sitar, who was living with her parents in Ventura, California, rarely left her house except to pick up a daily drink from her local Starbucks.
Then, one day after ordering, she decided to film a video for TikTok reviewing her favorite drink, a chai latte. In it, she did her now-signature squeal. Soon the video was flooded with comments.
“People were like, ‘Oh, you should try this, you should try this,’ and I was like, ‘I wonder what the baristas like to drink, like, what’s their go-to drink?’” she says.
Sitar recalls going through the drive-thru in October 2020 for what would become one of her first Starbucks videos and asking the barista to make her something that “tastes like fall.”
Their recommendation? A chai latte with pumpkin cream cold foam.
Just like before, she filmed herself drinking it and squealing with delight, and posted it to TikTok. To her surprise, people went “nuts” again.
“I was like, 'There’s no way people are excited about this drink,'" she says. “So, I went back the next day to Starbucks again and they all had seen the video,” she says. "They were like, 'Oh my gosh, we have so many good drinks. We want you to try all of them.'"
Since then, Sitar has tried countless different types of Starbucks drinks — she estimates at least 200 — posting them all with the hashtag #annaxstarbies. And no, before you ask, she has yet to try the new olive oil drink out of fear of how it will affect her stomach.
Her go-to drink changes depending on her mood and the time of day. She loves a Dragon Drink with vanilla cold foam. But from a coffee standpoint, her favorite is the Iced Brown Sugar Oatmilk Shaken Espresso.
“If you try it with caramel drizzle and vanilla sweet cream cold foam, it’s a game-changer. It’s so divine. That’s my go-to every morning now,” she says.
More than coffee, it’s a community
Funnily enough, Sitar didn’t start drinking coffee until she was 18. Growing up, in fact, her parents didn’t allow her drink coffee. In her house, caffeine was a big no-no.
When she got to college at Western Michigan University, Sitar located a Starbucks on her way to engineering class. Every day, she stopped to pick up a frozen chai, which she finds hilarious looking back because the drink doesn’t even have much caffeine.
But the stop at Starbucks meant more to Sitar than a caffeine fix.
“I think more than what I love than like being about Starbucks is the sense of community,” she says. “I think that’s what always attracted me to going there, that I was going to see friends.”
“Coffee shops in general have this ability to cultivate an audience of having people be brought together whether it’s like for work, friends or meetings,” she adds.
When Sitar began her "Starbies" videos, she was living with her parents who had just moved to the area, so she didn't have many friends around.
After her first couple of Starbucks videos went viral, Sitar noticed baristas at her local Starbucks reaching out with new drinks for her to try. One barista even went out of her way to make Sitar a Caramel Apple Spice drink and a Starbucks Cinnamon Toast Crunch Frappuccino (from the secret menu).
Every time Sitar went to her local store, she says she and the baristas got closer.
Sometimes she says they’d fight over who got make her drink when she pulled up to the window. The fact that she was friends with them made the ordering process fun despite her complicated requests.
“It ended up not only blossoming into a whole Starbucks series but also a community between me and my favorite baristas on the planet,” she says.
In April 2021, Sitar was away from home for her birthday. While away, she got DMs and texts from the baristas telling her to come into the store when she got back. Usually, she'd go through drive-thru.
To her surprise, when went into the store after she got home there was a "happy birthday" banner hanging for her.
"They'd decorated the whole store for my birthday on the inside and I was like, 'This is unreal.' They gave me a gift card and they gave me a Starbucks mug. It was just the cutest thing that they thought of me on my birthday," she says. "They made sure to make me feel special. They didn't have to do that."
Although Sitar no longer lives with her parents, whenever she's home, she swings by her local store where it all began to say hi and catch up.
But as her platforms grown, she's learned her Starbucks community extends beyond her local store to others across the country, and of course, online.
Whenever she walks into a Starbucks, no matter if she's been there before, she says she always leaves smiling.
"I feel really lucky that I've never had a bad experience at Starbucks," Sitar says. "I know they've dealt with so many people that day, they've seen probably already hundreds of faces by the time I've gotten there, so I just want to make sure I'm nice and kind to everybody."
Sitar says she also takes time to sift through people creating their own Starbucks review videos under the hashtag #annaxstarbies.
She'll scroll through a find a video she likes, and comment "slay" or "I love this." She's always stunned by how clever and creative people are with their drinks.
"It's the best way to bring people together," she says. "When you hashtag that or you tag me on a video, I see it all. It's great because I get the opportunity to go in and communicate with you and connect with you on a deeper level."
Dreams of having her own Starbucks drink and creating a 'safe space' for her followers
If there was a drink that captures her essence, she says, it would be a chai cold brew. She's tried making her own version before and recalls it being divine and a perfect holiday drink. "Starbucks, don't make this drink without me please," she says.
But for now, Sitar continues to enjoy finding new, creative ways to connect with her audience.
“I just want to be a place where like, you can come and relax and enjoy and know that you’re welcome,” she says. “This is your little safe space to as much as it’s mine.”
“I want to be like a little shining light on social media ... a little bit of a brighter corner on the internet.”
