Starbucks Confirms Fall Menu for August 25: Pumpkin Cream Drinks Expand as Fall Coffee Season Starts This Week

Starbucks confirmed on August 3, 2026 that its fall menu returns to U.S. coffeehouses on August 25, led by the Pumpkin Spice Latte and joined by new pumpkin spice drinks, a cider-inspired Chaider, and two banana bread beverages. Dunkin's reported fall menu lands six days earlier, on August 19. The two biggest U.S. coffee chains are opening the 2026 fall season within the same week, and for cafés and their suppliers the busiest whipped cream and cold foam quarter of the year now has a firm start date.

What Starbucks Announced

The August 3 announcement extends the pumpkin lineup well beyond the original latte. Three pumpkin spice drinks are new this year, and three more return:

Drink	Status for 2026	Build note
Pumpkin Spice Latte	Returning	The chain's best-selling seasonal beverage since 2003
Iced Pumpkin Cream Shaken Espresso	New	Pumpkin cream build
Pumpkin Spice Chai	New	—
Iced Pumpkin Cream Matcha	New	Pumpkin cream build
Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew	Returning	Pumpkin cream build
Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai	Returning	Pumpkin cream build
Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino	Returning	—

Around the pumpkin core, the menu adds the Pecan Cortado, Iced Pecan Crunch Latte and Pecan Crunch Latte; two banana-bread drinks, the Iced Banana Bread Latte and Iced Banana Bread Chai, which stay available beyond the fall season; and the new Chaider, a chai with cider-inspired cinnamon and sweet spice notes, served hot or iced. New food items include the Chicken Bacon Protein Pocket with 20 grams of protein and a Hedgehog Cake Pop, with the Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin returning.

The retail side started even earlier. A second Starbucks release the same day confirms pumpkin spice coffees, creamers and ready-to-drink beverages are already on grocery shelves, including a new zero-added-sugar bottled Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino, and the company's seasonal at-home recipes this year include a Pumpkin Spice Cold Foam and a Pumpkin Whipped Cream Cold Brew.

Fall Now Starts in August

The Pumpkin Spice Latte debuted in 2003 and has sold in the hundreds of millions since, remaining Starbucks' best-selling seasonal beverage, according to FOX's coverage of the announcement. The format spread quickly: Dunkin' introduced pumpkin-flavored drinks in 2007 and McDonald's followed with its own pumpkin spice latte in 2013. Launch timing keeps creeping earlier, and mid-August has become the de facto start of the season. This year the two chains land within six days of each other: Dunkin's reported fall menu on August 19, Starbucks' confirmed lineup on August 25.

What It Means for Cafés and Suppliers

• Foam workload ramps within weeks, not months. Chain launches set the flavor agenda for independent shops every fall. Cafés planning pumpkin or foam-topped specials should expect topping volume to climb from the last week of August onward.
• Pumpkin cream foam now spans the whole menu. Espresso, matcha and chai all get the pumpkin cream treatment this year, not just cold brew. One foam base recipe can cover several drink categories.
• No chain-scale equipment is needed to match the trend. A cream whipper charged with a standard 8g cream charger produces the same dense, slow-sinking cold foam in seconds, and one charger covers roughly a half-liter of foam base.
• The restock window is now. Distributors typically see independent shops follow chain toppings within weeks of a launch. Securing bulk cream chargers before the September uptick is the lowest-cost move of the season.

Champion Whip supplies food-grade N2O from 8g cartridges to 3000g cylinders, factory-direct, with warehouse stock in the United States, Germany and Belgium. If you are planning fall volumes for a café group or a distribution territory, send us your expected weekly output and delivery region, and we will map a charger format and restock schedule to match.

Sources

• Starbucks Stories: Starbucks announces the return of Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL) Aug. 25, new Chaider and more fall favorites (August 3, 2026)
• Starbucks Stories: Starbucks Pumpkin Spice coffees, creamers and ready-to-drink beverages arrive in grocery stores (August 3, 2026)
• LiveNOW from FOX: Starbucks reveals Pumpkin Spice Latte return date for 2026 (August 5, 2026)