After dominating America’s seasonal drink lineup for years, pumpkin spice may be losing its grip on fall.
McDonald’s, one of the largest restaurant chains in the world, said last week it would not include pumpkin-spice-flavored coffee in its offering of autumn-themed drinks this fall. Instead, the company has replaced it with another fall flavor in a clear sign that the archetypal fall flavor of the 2010s is changing with the warming globe.
“Caramel Apple Pie is the only fall coffee flavor McDonald’s is releasing this year,” a spokesperson for McDonald’s USA told Fortune in a statement. “While Pumpkin Spice will not be part of this year’s lineup, we’re always exploring new ways to give fans seasonal flavors to enjoy.”
While McDonald’s has never been as closely associated with the drink flavor as other chains, particularly Starbucks and New England’s Dunkin’, the company’s decision not to offer it at all says something about where we stand in the fall flavor wars.
Pumpkin spice’s maturity as a flavor also comes as the youngest millennials, the generation most associated with the drink, reached 30 this year. While an Empower survey from 2025 shows Gen Z customers are slightly more likely than millennials to buy pumpkin-spice-flavored coffee, they aren’t sticking to one flavor. These younger customers have also recently fueled interest for a variety of different types of drinks as evidenced by the recent spike in demand for drinks which include protein and matcha.
The demand for protein was so intense last year it led to a flurry of new product offerings, including from Starbucks. Meanwhile Gen Z’s hunger for matcha led to shortages of the tea powder worldwide.
Climate change has added a new wrinkle to the subject of pumpkin spice, the flavor usually associated with cooler weather and the coming of autumn. As the continental United States marked its hottest month on record in July, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, some chains have started launching their seasonal drinks earlier in August to adapt. Almost all offer iced or frozen versions of their pumpkin-flavored offerings to suit a warming world with prolonged summers.
Search data adds more evidence that pumpkin flavors may be past their peak. Data from Google Trends shows searches for “pumpkin spice latte” surging on cue, as the fall season approaches, but only dominating searches in three states as of late August, a sharp drop from 32 states at this point in 2025 and 48 states in 2024. Other standout flavors like matcha and chai lattes dominated searches instead, according to the Washington Post. And over 260% more people searched for “matcha latte” than “pumpkin spice latte,” according to Google Trends data reported by the New York Post. DoorDash data also shows that several other drink flavors are now trending higher than pumpkin spice on the platform, including caramel, apple, and cinnamon.
Pumpkin spice is sticking around
That isn’t to say pumpkin-spice-flavored drinks are going away; they just aren’t dominating American restaurant chains’ usual lineup of fall-themed drinks like they used to.
Starbucks, the creator of the first Pumpkin Spice Latte, launched in 2003, doubled down on the category with its biggest fall menu this year, featuring an expanded selection of drinks that now includes the Iced Pumpkin Cream Shaken Espresso, Pumpkin Spice Chai, and Iced Pumpkin Cream Matcha.
A report from food and beverage analytics company Datassential found that 37% more coffee establishments sold pumpkin-spice coffee this year compared with a year ago, CNN reported. Still, the growth in the number of establishments selling caramel apple and apple pie dwarfed pumpkin spice’s advance.
“Pumpkin-spice lattes have long since graduated from trend status … But our data shows signs that it may be reaching its peak,” Cristen Milliner, a consumer trends expert at DoorDash, told Entrepreneur.
Some coffee chains have now expanded their non-pumpkin offerings as the classic pumpkin-spice drink loses some of its luster.
Caribou Coffee this year expanded its Honeycrisp apple drink selection, a category which it introduced in 2021 to supplement its pumpkin-flavored drinks. Scooter’s Coffee in 2021 introduced its first maple-flavored drink and has expanded the category with several new additions in the years since, while still maintaining pumpkin-flavored offerings.
Starbucks over the past decade has added drinks alongside its pumpkin-spice offerings. This includes its selection of pecan-flavored drinks, which made a splash in 2024 and is back this year. For the coming fall season, Starbucks has also added banana-bread-flavored drinks as well as a chai and cider iced drink released this year called “Chaider.”
Meanwhile, Dunkin’ added a new lineup of tiramisu drinks this year, some of which will take advantage of America’s obsession with protein-flavored and matcha offerings.
