I’ve never heard of this, I’ve always brewed all of them for 5. The only thing I’ve heard is that white tea only lasts 10hrs as opposed to the others that last 12hrs. But I’m curious to see others responses!

Green tea and white tea both used to be steeped for three minutes, but about two years ago they changed it to five for all teas ☺️

I personally love tea and the rule of thumb is to let white tea brew for longer, it's to really let the flavours soak. I'm not sure for Starbucks because my store doesn't have white tea. The dangers with letting tea soak for too long is to do with the bitterness. Green tea has a high likelihood of going bitter if steeped too long, black tea is less likely and white tea is not really bitter at all.

Sorry I probably added to the confusion

I thought it was 4 mins for white tea

Before Starbucks I worked at a tea house, and there i learned that white tea and green tea should be steeped for a maximum of three minutes because otherwise it gets bitter, but my snobby tea knowledge doesn’t really matter now that I work in coffee.

I think it's confusion between iced teas and brewed teas. When we brew individual tea bags (hot teas made to order), there's a difference in brew time depending on the tea. But you're right, the BRM for tea specifies 5 minutes for all.

Starbucks doesn't really care about the quality of teas tbh. Different teas should be steeped for different times and at different temperatures, but nope...

I’ve worked at Starbucks for almost 3 years. From what I remember, White tea was brewed for less time, 3 minutes sounds right. But most partners and shifts who I worked with at the time didn’t follow the rule (mostly because it’s super annoying)
Also yes, White is only good for 8 hours, not 12. When I asked my shifts at the time, they had no answer as to why, that was just the rule.

I know for a while my store was a test location for double strength teas and I think we just cut the water amount in half but I don’t remember if we also adjusted the brew time or not

One of my shifts that had been a manager in Florida mentioned the three minute rule