10 pumpkin spice lattes, ranked 🎃
The best (and worst) fall-flavored coffees in NYC.
Some of you swear by Sey, where you drink coffee made from beans that have been washed and gently roasted. A lot of you wait in line at Maru every day to order and then wait again for a patiently, perfectly-made pour over. Me? I have hundreds of stars in my Starbucks app, order Dunkin’s Caramel Me Crazy ground coffee in bulk and truly think this is one of the greatest things on God’s green earth.
I get it, though. I stumbled into a Muted Entity pop up — a coffee brand “with the goal of bringing reverence back to coffee’s origins” that hopes to “inspire beauty and stillness in your daily coffee ritual” — a few weeks ago and left with a cup of cold brew that I was told was as gentle as tea. I didn’t dare ask for milk and I’m glad I didn’t because every sip really did taste like the “grape, candy, floral, honey, cocoa, hint of gold rum” that the expected notes suggested it would.
The thoughtfulness those places prioritize makes the coffee taste like fruit and flowers. The shots they pull are never burnt and milk is steamed to a temperature that makes drinking a latte feel like sipping velvet. If you don’t mind waiting longer and paying more, I won’t stop you from getting into really good coffee. I just have enough expensive, time-consuming vices (traveling to Manhattan and back so my freezer is always stocked with Caffè Panna) and I don’t need another thing to be a snob about (I’m a New York sports fan). I also really like milk and sugar.
Naturally, I love this time of year, when coffee shops start brewing creamy pumpkin spice lattes and peppermint mochas. I return to the same two pumpkin drinks every year — one is hot, one is iced, both are slightly orange in color and taste like sweet squash spiked with cinnamon and nutmeg and maple syrup. I especially appreciate them this year, because I’ve tried eight others in the last week, and few were better than very disappointing. If I didn’t try your favorite, let me know in the comments.
9. La Colombe
Order: Black and tan with pumpkin syrup
Locations: Everywhere
Rating: 0/10
This one was the most disappointing because for the last few years it’s been an airy, slightly sweet, dream of a drink. I love La Colombe’s black and tan, a combination of cold brew and their famous, super light and frothy draft latte. In Octobers past, they’ve made a pumpkin draft latte, but this year, the options were a pumpkin chai oat milk draft latte or to add pumpkin syrup to the classic draft. I guess I should have picked the former, because the syrup unfortunately tasted more like soap or plastic than pumpkin, but I don’t really mess with oat milk. The plethora of options really threw me off here, too. Give me one pumpkin drink and call it a day.
8. Birch Coffee
Order: BSL (Birch Spiced Latte)
Locations: All over the city, inside of Moynihan station, at Laguardia airport, in Seoul…
Rating: 1/10
My friends really hyped this one up, they told me it was cozy, delicious, not too sweet and super spicy. Readers, my friends lied to me. Well, they were right about the last part, but they meant spicy in a complimentary way, and I tasted spicy in a pinecone or pot of holiday potpourri kind of way. It was also cloyingly sweet. I walked into the DMV with it and left crying — mostly because I brought the wrong documents with me and couldn’t renew my permit, but a little bit because my latte tasted like this. I will say, though, Birch has the best iced coffee.
7. Maman
Order: Signature pumpkin pie latte
Locations: New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, DC, even Florida.
Rating: 3/10
I have a soft spot for Maman because it’s the home of a very good, once viral, doughy, crispy hazelnut and gooey dark chocolate-studded cookie. Being one of Oprah’s favorite things used to mean something. Sadly, their “signature pumpkin pie latte” which is made with “slow cooked pumpkin puree with brown sugar, a blend of warm spices… a splash of maple syrup paired with espresso and milk” is not very spicy or sweet, and arrives with kind of unpleasant chunks of squash floating around the bottom of the mug.
6. Mazzola Bakery
Order: Pumpkin spice coffee, iced
Location: Carroll Gardens
Price: $4
Rating: 4/10
I ride or die for Mazzola, but this coffee tastes just like their regular blend. I have a bag of ground pumpkin coffee from Trader Joe’s at home, though, and it has too much pumpkin spice. I have no clue how you flavor a coffee bean, and quite frankly I don’t want to know, but maybe it’s hard to find a perfect balance. Anyways, I’d keep the order simple: a cup of their sweet and nutty hazelnut blend and a loaf of seeded semolina (or provolone if you want something really decadent) to rip chunks off of all weekend long..
5. Swallow Cafe
Order: Pumpkin spice latte, hot
Locations: Bushwick, Williamsburg, Cobble Hill
Price: $7.89
Rating: 7/10
Finally, some good news! I liked this latte — the pumpkin spice flavor was pretty subtle, but the spices were delicious and more complex than just a bunch of cinnamon. It didn’t rock my world but if you’re really craving a pumpkin spice latte, this will do.
4. Interlude Cafe
Order: Pumpkin spice latte, hot
Location: Tribeca
Rating: 9/10
What did rock my world was this pumpkin spice latte and the coffee shop I found it in. I walked into Interlude on a Thursday afternoon to an ideal crowd (enough interesting, hot people to eavesdrop on and look at, enough empty seats to choose between a table and a window seat) and the smell of batter baking. Every pastry in the case is made in the back, including croissants that are laminated by hand every single day and a flaky pop tart that Blake Lively is apparently a very big fan of. (I know she sucks, but the comments on this are absolutely ridiculous, everyone needs to grow up.) Their pumpkin spice latte uses a syrup that is also made in-house, which is probably why it isn’t very sweet but still tastes like a slice of pumpkin pie. I considered ordering a second one.
Two drinks that tied for third place and my beloved, tried & true, top two pumpkin spice lattes:
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