What Makes Starbucks Reserve's Pumpkin Spice Latte Unique?

Pumpkin Spice is the flavor of fall, and the Starbucks seasonal menu is full of it. From Pumpkin Cream Cold Brews to Iced Pumpkin Cream Chais and Pumpkin Spice Frappuccinos, there are endless ways for you to get your fix — but the Pumpkin Spice Latte will forever be immortalized as the drink of the season. Made from espresso and your choice of steamed milk, with real pumpkin puree mixed with flavors of pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove, and topped with whipped cream and authentic pumpkin pie spice seasoning, it really doesn't get much better. That is, unless you go to Starbucks Reserve.

Starbucks Reserve is where Starbucks' offers coffee and espresso drinks made from the rarest, highest quality, and most exquisite beans and blends the chain has to offer — those sourced from virtually unknown sources, including a range of remote, family-run farms, co-operatives, and ancient estates located around world. As for what makes a Starbucks Reserve Pumpkin Spice Latte unique to a regular one, in turn, is just that: the beans. At Starbucks Reserve, the only thing different about the Pumpkin Spice Lattes are that they're made with the brand's Reserve Espresso.

Roasted in small batches in Starbucks Reserve Roasteries around the world, Starbucks Reserve coffee beans are sourced for the season, with some only available for weeks at a time. While the selection might vary from season to region, you can always be sure you're sipping the best of the best — because you and your PSL deserve nothing less.

So, what makes the Starbucks Reserve Espresso different from the Reserve coffee beans? The answer to that is the same as to what makes all espresso taste different from coffee — how the beans are roasted, ground, and brewed. To make the Starbucks Reserve Espresso, Starbucks Reserve's master roasters take whatever ultra-premium and rare seasonal beans the cafes are serving at that time and roast them at a slightly higher pressure, for a longer amount of time. In so, they're able to extract even more oils from the espresso beans, making them even stronger, deeper, and more concentrated in flavor. All of the things you expect from an espresso.

When the roasters are finished with them, the beans are sent out to the Reserve cafes where the baristas grind them very finely and uniformly, as compared to the coarsely-ground coffee beans. This small difference allows for as much oil extraction as possible during the short time that espresso shots are pulled. That, then, leads to the final difference between the Starbucks Reserve Espresso beans and the Reserve coffee beans, which is how they're used and prepared.

After being roasted and ground, baristas at the Starbucks Reserve cafes pack and pull the ground espresso beans through the espresso machine using the utmost care and attention to technique. All of these steps ensure the Reserve Espresso shines the way it was intended to from that season's source, only making your Pumpkin Spice Latte all the more fall-forward.