By the Yerba Buena Tea Co. team. August 2026.
The quick version: steep 3 teaspoons of Pumpkin Spice in 6 oz of just-boiled water for 4 minutes, add 6 oz of steamed milk, and finish with 2 teaspoons of maple and a pinch of salt. Warm, spiced, and nowhere near as sweet as the drive-thru version. The full recipe card is just below, along with the iced method for warm afternoons.
The best part of a pumpkin spice latte is the spice
Not the syrup. That is the whole argument, and it stops being an argument the moment you taste the two side by side. A coffee shop PSL leads with sugar and finishes with a vague warmth somewhere behind it. This one leads with cinnamon bark and crystallized ginger, and the sweetness sits underneath where it belongs.
Five minutes, one tin, no espresso machine.
Why tea works better than espresso here
Espresso and pumpkin spice are fighting each other. Roast bitterness and warm baking spice sit in the same low, dark register, so the only way to make the spice read is to pile on syrup until it wins. That is why a coffee PSL is sweet. It has to be.
Black tea sits higher and brighter. It carries milk beautifully, it stays out of the way of cinnamon and cardamom, and it lets you cut the sweetener by two thirds without the drink going flat.
Our Pumpkin Spice is built for exactly this: a robust organic black tea blended with cinnamon bark, cardamom pods, and crystallized ginger. That last one is doing the heavy lifting. Dried ginger gives you heat. Crystallized ginger gives you heat plus a candied, lingering finish that reads as richness, which is the closest a dry leaf gets to tasting like dessert.
Four minutes, not five
This blend is cinnamon-forward and cinnamon needs time to open. But the black base turns astringent past four minutes at latte strength, and that astringency reads as bitterness the moment milk fat hits your palate. Set a timer and pull it at four.
Steam the milk to 140 to 150°F
Working without a thermometer? Pull it when you can still hold the jug for a slow count of three. Past about 160°F, milk starts tasting cooked and its natural sweetness drops off, which is the most common mistake in home lattes and the easiest one to fix. Oat milk scorches faster than dairy, so watch it more closely.
Barista oat and whole dairy both work. Oat brings its own gentle sweetness that suits the spice; whole milk brings more body.
Do not skip the salt
A pinch of salt is not a garnish here. Salt suppresses your perception of bitterness and lifts your perception of sweetness, which is how two teaspoons of maple does the work of six. Leave it out once and you will taste the difference immediately.
The iced version
Late August does not care that pumpkin season has started. Bump the leaf to 4 teaspoons in 5 oz of water, steep the same 4 minutes, then chill the concentrate completely before it touches ice.
That last step is the one people skip. Pouring hot tea straight over ice dilutes it into sadness and shocks the spice oils out of suspension. Twenty minutes in the refrigerator, or a shorter spell in the freezer, and the drink holds together. Sweeten while the concentrate is still warm so the maple actually dissolves, then pour over a full glass of ice and top with 5 oz of cold milk.
The same cold-brew principles apply to any blend in our iced tea guide.
Two ways to go deeper
Richer: swap the maple for homemade pumpkin spice syrup. Real purée simmered with cinnamon stick, clove, and freshly grated nutmeg gives the drink a rounder body that maple alone will not.
Bolder: brew Pumpkin Spice alongside our Chai in equal parts and simmer the whole thing on the stove with pumpkin purée whisked into the milk. That is a different drink and a better one, and it has its own recipe.
The full recipe, with the iced timing in the notes, is in the card below.
Frequently asked questions
Does pumpkin spice tea actually contain pumpkin?
Ours does not, and neither does most of what you have been drinking. "Pumpkin spice" describes the spice blend used in pumpkin pie, not the squash itself: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, allspice. Pumpkin purée contributes body and color more than flavor. If you want that texture, whisk a spoonful into the milk before steaming rather than stirring it into the finished cup, where it will settle into grit.
How much caffeine is in a pumpkin spice tea latte?
Pumpkin Spice is a high-caffeine black tea, so a 12 oz latte lands in the neighborhood of a strong cup of black tea rather than a coffee. Our caffeine chart has the numbers for every blend.
Is there a caffeine-free version?
Build the same latte on South African Chai, a naturally caffeine-free rooibos with the same warming spice profile. It takes milk just as well, and it is the right call after two in the afternoon. The rest of the evening lineup lives in our caffeine-free collection.
What are the orange flecks in the dry leaf?
Marigold petals. They are there for the color, not the flavor, and they look genuinely beautiful scattered across a white counter. Photograph them. Do not expect to taste them.
Can I make a pitcher ahead?
Brew the concentrate and keep it covered in the refrigerator for up to three days, then add milk by the glass. Do not combine the tea and milk in advance; dairy and tea sitting together lose their edge overnight.
Blended in our Salem, Oregon kitchen.
