The best pumpkin spice coffee has a good balance of spice, doesn’t taste like steeped potpourri, and warms your soul on a crisp fall morning—not that we have those here in Southern California. We brewed up some of the biggest brands on the market to find the best pumpkin spice coffee you can buy—and, no, Starbucks pumpkin spice coffee didn’t make the list. (It’s WAY too fruity!)
It’s fall (technically), and that means you can’t swing a stick in the grocery store without hitting at least 15 pumpkin and pumpkin spice products, from pumpkin spice cereal to pumpkin tortilla chips (yes, these actually exist). And, of course, there’s the one that started it all: pumpkin spice coffee. Sure, you could create a DIY pumpkin spice latte at home by simply adding a pumpkin spice creamer to your morning cup or, easier still, you could pluck some pie spice from the pantry, sprinkle it on your coffee, and voila. Of course, there are dozens of pre-pumpkin-spiced coffee blends on the market. In two separate taste tests, we curated a selection of pumpkin spice K-Cups, pumpkin spice ground coffee, and pumpkin spice cold brew and iced coffee, and tasted them all to find the best pumpkin spice coffee you can buy.
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- Coffee-mate Pumpkin Spice Iced Coffee
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Yes, this new Coffee-mate Pumpkin Spice Iced Coffee made our list of the best pumpkin spice coffee, but it comes with a few disclaimers. First of all, this is pretty weak. If you like a robust coffee flavor, this will make you physically angry. It’s not straight iced coffee, it’s more like a milky bottled latte. If you like those bottled Starbucks Frappuccinos, you’ll like this. It’s very pleasant! The pumpkin spice flavor is quite nice, which makes sense given that Coffee-mate also makes our favorite pumpkin spice coffee creamer. We tasted this head to head with Stok’s Pumpkin Creamed bottled cold brew, which had made our list in the past, but I swear that was even weaker than this, so we bumped it from the list. If you’re craving pumpkin spice cold brew, we unfortunately still haven’t found one we like. But if you just want a cold creamy pumpkin spice iced coffee, this will scratch the itch.
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- Maud’s Gourmet Coffee It’s the Great Pumpkin, Mrs. Brown Medium Roast K-Cup Pods
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The name of this coffee is a mouthful and so is its nutmeg flavor. On the whole, we preferred a pumpkin spice coffee in which you couldn’t necessarily isolate one spice flavor over another, but if nutmeg is your thing (and if you like pumpkin spice, it probably is), then this brand of pumpkin spice K-Cups is the way to go. You could even balance things out by adding a flavored creamer that leans to the cinnamon side, like Coffee-mate’s Cinnamon Vanilla Creme. Plus, the coffee itself is roasty and good.
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- Great Value Medium Roast Pumpkin Spice Ground Coffee
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It may be a medium roast, but this pumpkin spice ground coffee brewed up bold in our coffeemaker. The aroma is a little off-putting (I wrote in my notes that it had “the worst smell of any of the coffees we tried”), but if you can get past that, you’ll be rewarded with a good, strong coffee flavor that avoids dipping into bitterness, even with cinnamon in the mix. If you tend to add a lot of cream to your coffee, this is the best pumpkin spice coffee.
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- Dunkin’ Pumpkin Spice Ground Coffee
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In some pumpkin spice coffee, you mostly taste cinnamon. In others, the nutmeg overpowers everything else. In this Dunkin’ pumpkin spice ground coffee—which we brewed in our cute li’l one-cup coffee maker—you can really taste all of the spices equally, and it makes a beautifully balanced cup of coffee. Plus, you can still taste that classic Dunkin’ flavor in the coffee itself. I personally love Dunkin’ coffee and they make the best pumpkin spice coffee if balance is your thing.
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- Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Coffee
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I got it on good authority from Mythical Chef Josh that this pumpkin spice ground coffee from Trader Joe’s slaps, and he’s right. I think what makes this one special is the addition of orange peel and vanilla bean. So, so many pumpkin spice coffees (and other products) lean heavily on nutmeg and cinnamon, which can become bitter when brewed with coffee beans. This has other flavor agents to brighten things up a bit. It works nicely with the medium-dark roast beans. Best part? Trader Joe’s coffee is cheap, which means you can very easily stock up on the best pumpkin spice coffee if you get hooked.
Credit: Merc / Trader Joe’s
- The Pioneer Woman Pumpkin Spice Medium Roast
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The slightly astringent flavor of this medium roast coffee from everyone’s favorite folksy millionaire works pretty well with warm spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. From the aroma to the flavor, it’s much rounder and more interesting than a lot of other pumpkin spice coffee we tried. It’s just pumpkin spice, but it tastes like a cross between hazelnut and pumpkin spice or vanilla and pumpkin spice. It’s pretty refreshing for a warm fall treat. It’s very candle. It’s very craft store, but in a comforting way. Keep an eye out for these pumpkin spice K-Cups.
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- New England Coffee Pumpkin Spice K-Cup Pods
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The pumpkin spice coffee has a really pleasant, really earthy smell—like a spoonful of actual pumpkin was stirred into the coffee. The flavor is lovely, too. It’s pretty subdued, which is a good thing when it comes to pumpkin spice coffee. It’s a little bit cinnamon-y and leaves a nice, warm flavor in your mouth. After trying other pumpkin spice K-Cups during my taste test, I returned to this one and the cinnamon is actually more pronounced than I noticed upon first sip, but that earthiness saves the day.
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Peet’s Coffee Pumpkin Spice K-Cup Pods
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I live in a neighborhood with a Starbucks and a Peet’s, like, feet from one another (yay, corporate America!), and I gotta say that after tasting this pumpkin spice blend from Peet’s, I may forsake Starbucks in the future. From its well-rounded aroma to its balanced blend of pumpkin pie spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove), this coffee is incredibly pleasant. Also, and I can’t stress this enough, Starbucks Pumpkin Spice K-Cups did not taste good. The coffee had an almost fruity aroma and a potpourri-like taste to match. If you’re at the store and have to choose between the two, pick Peet’s. It’s the best pumpkin spice coffee two years running.
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Best Iced Coffee
Best Nutmeg Forward
Best Bold Coffee Flavor
Best Balanced
Best Cheap
Best Celeb Branded
Best Earthy
Best of the Best
Other products we tried: Crazy Cups Vanilla Pumpkin Spice Medium Roast K-Cups, Starbucks Pumpkin Spice K-Cups, Juniors Pumpkin PIe K-Cups, Skinny Girl Pumpkin Spice K-Cups, Stok Cold Brew Pumpkin Creamed, Entennmann’s Pumpkin Spice K-Cups, Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate, Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spice Flavored Cold Brew Coffee Concentrate
