Pumpkin Spice: The Ultimate Showdown
Every year as August comes to a close, Americans grabs their cozy sweaters and candles preparing for the most important time of year: pumpkin spice season. When coffee shops finally launch their fall menus, many eager customers drive through lines and mobile orders pile up for the baristas. But which store’s pumpkin spice menu rises above them all?
In Berrien County there are three main coffee chains: Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks and Bigbby. Each franchise has three locations in the area. Their pumpkin spice options can be compared in three main categories: price, popularity, and overall taste.
For price comparison, a small iced pumpkin spice latte from each location was the following:
From this information it can be concluded that Dunkin Donuts has the best price per oz over Biggby. It’s also notable that the Starbucks’ small is four oz less than the other two with their medium size or grande being 16 oz instead.
Senoir Gavin Brocato-a barista with three years of experience from Starbucks and Biggby- compared the taste of the lattes with me. In our opinion Starbucks had the least favorable taste.
“The Starbucks one tastes like pumpkin milk. It’s also thick, almost like creamer,” Gavin said, and I completely agree. There was little to no espresso taste and it was overly sweet which resulted in a 5/10 rating from Gavin and a 4/10 score from me resulting in a total score of 9/20.
Dunkin had almost the opposite taste profile. While the Starbucks Latte barely had any espresso taste, the espresso flavor of the dunkin latte seemed to over power the pumpkin, probably due to Dunkin also adding vanilla to their standard pumpkin spice latte. We both rated it a 7/10 so the total score was 14/20.
Lastly, the latte we declared best with a score of 10/10 from me and 9/10 from Gavin, totaling 19/20 was the Biggby latte. It was the perfect blend of pumpkin and espresso.
“It tastes like coffee, it tastes like pumpkin spice, it’s not super rich like the Starbucks one,” Gavin said. For me, it fulfilled the expectation perfectly, and I didn’t have to search for the different taste elements like the other two.
When it comes to public opinion, according to a survey of 37 St Joseph High School students, Starbucks swept with over half of the votes, followed by Biggby then Dunkin. This is no surprise, as Starbucks does have a larger social media presence and drinks like their “pumpkin chai” get lots of free advertising on TikTok and Instagram.
After taking into consideration all of the evidence Biggby in my opinion has the best pumpkin spice. It scored the best in the taste test, and placed second in the other categories. Although it may not be the most popular-most likely because it’s a regional chain-Biggby’s overall quality and pricing makes up for it. Dunkin came in second place in my books because it’s a cheaper alternative to Biggby with a better taste profile than Starbucks. Starbucks overall, while being beloved by many is the most expensive, has the smallest sizing and doesn’t have quality to justify it.