The pumpkin spice latte is beloved and reviled. Can coffee snobs get behind it?
Many independent coffee shops in Philly can no longer resist the siren song of the PSL.
When Starbucks project manager Peter Dukes and team whipped up a new fall-flavored latte in 2003, little did they know it would spark countless imitators and, indeed, a multibillion-dollar flavor category unto itself. Pumpkin spice was relatively under-the-radar 20 years ago. Today, it’s a juggernaut, seasoning an ever-growing and increasingly unusual list of products: hard seltzer, hummus, ramen noodles, dog treats, deodorant.
That panoply of pumpkin-spiced things might be why its seasonal appearance inspires ire in so many, or maybe it’s the anachronism of pumpkin in August, or that the flavor is considered “basic.” For every pumpkin spice latte (PSL) die-hard, it seems there’s a staunch opponent.
But the haters haven’t stopped Philly’s independent coffee shops from embracing the now-classic combo of pumpkin, warm spice, sugar, steamed milk, and espresso. It’s on the menu at Cake & Joe (where it’s topped with spice-sprinkled whipped cream), Green Line Cafe (ask them to draw a pumpkin in the latte foam), and even heavy metal-tinged Grindcore House West (where it appears alongside more outré offerings like the bloody mocha and the Carrie White). The list goes on: Reanimator, Rowhome, Ultimo, OCF, Old City Coffee, Shot Tower. On La Colombe’s website, canned PSLs (”real pumpkin + cold brew”) are sold out. (Update: they are back in stock and on draft in the store’s cafes)
“I personally love pumpkin spice lattes,” says Rival Bros director of retail operations Molly Kakabadze. She suspects the shade the drink receives might not be truly thought-out. “I feel like maybe it just comes with the name.”
Rival Bros debuted its own PSL in fall 2020, which marked a turn for the three-location roastery. Pre-pandemic, “we didn’t really get too much into seasonal beverages. We played it pretty basic: vanilla, brown sugar, mocha,” Kakabadze recalls. “In 2020, maybe with COVID and all of the changes that came with that, our customers started asking for more flavored drinks. People wanted … something cheery.”
It was a win-win for Rival Bros and its customers. Last year, Rival Bros sold roughly 3,000 PSLs — enriched with house-made syrup that combines Linvilla Orchards pumpkin butter, vanilla bean paste, pie spices, and brown sugar — in less than three months. This year, it’s anticipating the number will be closer to 5,000. The demand has encouraged Rival Bros to experiment with even more seasonal drinks, including nitro chai cider and summer specials like espresso spritz and draft hibiscus lemonade.
Elsewhere, some cafés have sidestepped the PSL proper, but they’re riffing on it. Good Karma Cafe sells pumpkin hot chocolate and chai, Elixr makes a kabocha squash latte, and Function Coffee Labs has a maple-butternut squash spice latte.
A chilly day in September inspired the team behind Kensington’s Càphê Roasters to channel pumpkin vibes. “It was really cold one day and we were like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t wait for the fall,’” says Tina Huynh, Càphê's marketing and communications director. “Let’s do something pumpkin-y.”
Huynh and team knew the flavor has become a bit polarizing, but they had a plan. “Let’s make it Càphê. What can we do to elevate it?” Hunyh says.
They landed on the Bí My Cà Phê Sữa, a bittersweet blend of Vietnamese espresso, condensed milk, spiced pumpkin puree, and pumpkin cold foam — “just to make it extra-pumpkin-y.” The drink sold out the first day they debuted it in mid-September. They whipped up more pumpkin puree straightaway.
Though it’s well on its way, the PSL has more inroads to make before it reaches total domination. There remain a few independent-cafe holdouts who deliberately keep it off menu. Instead, they’re presenting alternative autumnal offerings, like Persimmon Coffee’s Foolish Tiger, a latte sweetened with persimmon-ginger and maple syrups and spiced with cinnamon and black walnut bitters. Or Rally Coffee’s Amber Moon, a latte with maple-miso-ginger simple syrup. Or Peddler Coffee’s honey-cinnamon latte.
“I just think people get stuck in Starbucks’ menu and can go outside of the box a bit,” says Peddler co-owner Lindsay Young. She says the Logan Square cafe’s maple spice latte is the closest thing to a PSL. “It’s similar spices and only sweetened with pure maple syrup so it still provides that ‘fall in a cup’ feeling. … People can get a pumpkin spiced latte anywhere else.”
OX Coffee co-owner Will Gross echoes the sentiment, explaining why the Queen Village cafe passed on pumpkin in manager Carly Phelan’s forthcoming fall drink, a brown sugar/rosemary latte dubbed the Brown Roser.
“With the sea of PSLs out there,” Gross says, “we were hoping to do something cut from a slightly different cloth.”