Pumpkin Spice Matcha Latte @ Starbucks
This is another review of a prepared beverage at an establishment, not the powder or self-made tea. It’s specifically about the taste of the gimmick drink that features matcha, not the matcha itself. Just as a sidenote!
General Info
It’s fall and Starbucks has brought back the PSL. New for me this year is the Pumpkin Spice Matcha Latte. It’s expensive as hell (over 8 Euro for a Venti) but I had to try it.
Important to note:
- The Pumpkin Spice Sauce in EU is vegan. The one in US apparently isn’t (anymore?).
- By default, this drink comes with dairy milk, whipped cream and, for venti size, 5 pumps of the sauce. I order without whipped cream, substitute oat milk, and prefer only 3 pumps of sauce.
- This is the hot drink. I sadly won’t be able to try the iced matcha latte with pumpkin spice cold foam they also offer because we don’t have the dairyfree cold foam option here.
Color and Smell
Can’t say much about the color as I drank it from opaque cups, but the little I saw, it barely affected the green color at all.
Smell is strongly spicy-sweet, similar to as if it was a chai.
Taste
As said above, I order with some modifications as I don’t want my drinks to be too sweet, and most default pumps set on drinks is too much for me. I think 3 pumps for Venti is strong enough pumpkin spice flavor and sweetness without completely overshadowing the matcha. Starbucks’ matcha is not umami and relatively bitter, and by default on its own drink, is sweetened with ‘classic’ syrup (or in EU, ‘simple’ syrup) anyway. So with the pumpkin sauce, it really tastes like a spicy-seasoned and slightly sweeter matcha latte.
Conclusion
I expected to hate it because I really hate the chai syrup - way too sweet and chemical. But this one hits just right. I can enjoy this as a fall special for a little while. One bowl subtracted because the default option is sugar overload and would completely drown out the matcha taste.
🍵🍵🍵🍵 4 out of 5 matcha bowls.