Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte {Starbucks Copycat}

Looking for a pumpkin drink from Starbucks that doesn't have any coffee in it? The Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte is for you! And with this easy copycat recipe, you can make the perfect fall drink at home.

Jump to:

• 🎃 What is the Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte?
• ❤️ Why you'll love this recipe
• 🗒 Ingredients
• 🥣 How to make pumpkin spice sauce
• 🥛 How to make pumpkin cream cold foam
• 🧋 How to make Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte
• 🎉 Variations on drink
• ⚡️ Does the drink have caffeine?
• 🍬 How much sugar does the drink have?
• 🍭 How to make a drink with less sugar
• 🥤 What are Starbucks' other fall menu items?
• ☕️ More Starbucks fall drink copycat recipes
• 📖 Recipe
• 💬 Comments

You know fall is in the air when Starbucks launches their annual fall menu! This year (2023) is an especially good one with a few new drinks and treats coming our way.

Of course, pumpkin always seems to be a hit at Starbucks, so in addition to bringing back their Pumpkin Spice Latte and Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew, they've also released a new pumpkin drink: the Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte.

Yes, it's a tea-based drink, which means that even coffee abstainers can now indulge in pumpkin at Starbucks! I'm a coffee lover myself, but even I have been finding the new chai latte pretty irresistible.

🎃 What is the Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte?

So, what exactly goes into the new chai drink at Starbucks? The company says about the drink, "For the iced indulger—who wants a new way to enjoy cozy autumn flavors—this customer-inspired pumpkin cream chai blends the warming spice flavors of chai and pumpkin without the coffee for a perfectly iced cup in fall."

It's made with a chai tea concentrate, 2% milk, pumpkin spice cold foam, and pumpkin spice topping.

Of course, you can get many different customizations to it and turn it into your ideal drink!

❤️ Why you'll love this recipe

You'll love this make-at-home copycat version of the Iced Pumpkin Chai Latte because it tastes just like what you get at the coffee shop!

Plus, it's super easy to make. You can make the pumpkin spice cream in advance and turn it into a cold foam right before you're ready to enjoy the drink.

It's also very easy to customize this drink to your own liking. There are lots of ingredients you can add... You can even add a shot of espresso if you really need that coffee!

If you love this pumpkin chai, you should also try my copycat recipe for the Starbucks holiday chai- the Iced Gingerbread Oatmilk Chai Latte! And the 2024 fall Starbucks addition, the Iced Apple Crisp Nonfat Cream Chai.

🗒 Ingredients

Despite this drink's name being a mouthful, you actually don't need too many ingredients to make it. Here are the main components for the drink (be sure to view the recipe card at the bottom of this post for ingredient amounts and full recipe instructions):

• Chai tea concentrate: Starbucks doesn't sell the chai tea concentrate they use, so I recommend using Tazo Chai Tea Concentrate or simply the brand you like best. If you prefer to make a homemade chai tea with tea bags instead, I share some information on how to do that below.

• 2% milk: You'll mix the milk with the chai tea concentrate.

• Pumpkin spice cold foam: This adds the pumpkin flavor to the iced latte and can easily be made at home.

Here's everything you need to make the cold foam:

• 2% milk
• Heavy cream
• Vanilla simple syrup: You can either make your own vanilla syrup with this recipe or you can buy a bottle of vanilla syrup. If you don't want to make or buy it, you can use a teaspoon of vanilla extract instead.
• Pumpkin spice sauce: You can either make your own sauce with the recipe I share in this post or you can buy a bottle of pumpkin spice sauce.

If you're making your own pumpkin spice sauce, here's what you need:

• Sweetened condensed milk: Ideally you'll use nonfat sweetened condensed milk, but if you can't find it, you can definitely substitute with regular.
• Pumpkin puree
• Pumpkin pie spice
• Vanilla extract

🥣 How to make pumpkin spice sauce

I always try to make my Starbucks copycat recipes as true as they can be to the actual drinks at the coffee shop. That means not just in taste, but also in ingredients.

I've previously made more of a syrup for my pumpkin spice sauce, but after seeing the ingredients for their new drink version, I've changed my recipe up (you can still see the old recipe in my Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew recipe - use the sauce recipe there if you want a more syrup-type sauce).

Or you can feel free to purchase a sauce instead. This pumpkin spice sauce is known to be the most similar.

Starbucks claims their sauce is made with condensed skim milk, sugar, pumpkin puree, and natural flavors.

If you can find fat-free sweetened condensed milk, use that. But it's really hit or miss for me to see that in my local grocery store, so I've made this sauce with regular sweetened condensed milk, too, and that works just fine.

Put a whole can (14 oz) of condensed milk in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, along with a cup of pumpkin puree, 1 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice, and ¼ teaspoon salt.

Since the milk is sweetened, you don't need to add any more sugar to the mixture.

Stir together and heat for about 5 minutes, until it's just starting to bubble.

Remove it from the heat and stir in 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Pour the pumpkin spice sauce into a heat-proof jar or bowl (I like to use a large mason jar) and place in the fridge to cool.

omg this sauce is SO good!

🥛 How to make pumpkin cream cold foam

You can make the pumpkin cold cream in advance and then turn it into a cold foam right before you're ready to enjoy your drink.

To make the cold cream, simply put ¾ cup 2% milk, ¼ cup heavy cream, 2 ½ tablespoons pumpkin spice sauce, and 2 teaspoons vanilla syrup in a large jar and shake really well to combine.

Remember, if you don't have vanilla syrup, you can use 1 teaspoon vanilla extract instead.

If you don't have a large jar, you can stir all the ingredients together in a bowl and then transfer to an airtight container.

This is your pumpkin cold cream! If you're not using it right away, keep it in an airtight container in the fridge.

When you're ready to enjoy your Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte, you'll want to turn the cold cream into a cold foam. You do that in either an electric frother, hand mixer, or blender.

Simply add the sweet cream to your appliance and froth, mix, or blend until the mixture turns into a foam.

I usually have to run my frother a few cycles to get it to really foam up. If yours isn't frothing, remove half of the mixture from frother and run it in batches.

If you don't have any of these small appliances, you can keep the mixture in the mason jar and shake it really, really well until it's frothy.

🧋 How to make Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte

Now that you have all the elements of your drink ready, you're ready to whip it up- it's so quick and easy to do!

Just add chai tea concentrate to an ice-filled glass.

Pour milk into glass.

And top drink with pumpkin cream cold foam. I usually pour it in and then spoon some of the extra frothy stuff on top.

Sprinkle pumpkin pie spice over the top.

I mean, can't you tell just by looking at this that it's going to be absolutely ridiculously delicious?

Chai is already filled with great spices and the pumpkin and pumpkin spice flavors complement them so well. There are so many layers of flavor in this drink and it's so perfectly fall in all aspects!

🎉 Variations on drink

If you want the drink as is just like Starbucks serves it, you should make it how I describe. However, lots of people who are enjoying the Pumpkin Chai Latte are adding all kinds of extra deliciousness to it.

Here are some ideas:

• Make it a dirty pumpkin chai by adding a shot or two of espresso.

• If you want more pumpkin flavor, you can use all pumpkin sweet cream instead of 2% milk (just be aware this does add more calories)

• Add caramel drizzle for even more fall flavor!

• Make it with the dairy or dairy alternative of your choice instead of 2% milk. Try oat milk, coconut milk, or almond milk... Just note that changing the dairy will slightly change the flavor of the drink.

• Add the flavored syrup of your choice. Lots of people have been loving the addition of brown sugar syrup, pumpkin syrup, apple syrup, cinnamon dolce syrup, or caramel syrup.

I love enjoying the pumpkin chai with homemade pumpkin bread or pumpkin cheesecake cookies.

⚡️ Does the drink have caffeine?

Because chai tea is a black tea, it does have a little bit of caffeine in it. According to Starbucks, a grande Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte has 95 mg of caffeine.

For reference, a grande iced coffee at Starbucks has 165 mg of caffeine.

If you prefer, you can use a decaf chai tea concentrate to make this drink.

🍬 How much sugar does the drink have?

You should note that the Iced Pumpkin Chai Latte is not a low-sugar drink. The grande version in the store has about 66 grams of sugar.

For comparison's sake, a grande Iced Pumpkin Spice Latte has 45 grams of sugar and a grande Iced Matcha Tea Latte has 28 grams of sugar.

If you choose to add additional syrups to this drink, it will add more grams of sugar to it.

🍭 How to make a drink with less sugar

One of the main reasons the Pumpkin Chai has a lot of sugar in it is because it's made with a chai tea concentrate, which already has sugar in it.

If you want a lower sugar drink, you can make your chai tea with actual tea bags. I recommend using a couple tea bags per cup of water so you still have a concentrated flavor to the drink.

I like these chai tea bags best.

When making the drink, you'll want to use more of the tea than you would of the concentrate. Then you can add simple syrup, honey, agave, or maple syrup until you reach the sweetness level you like.

Another option is to use a lower sugar chai tea concentrate. You can also use less of the regular chai concentrate if you want, but you don't want to lessen the chai flavor too much.

Remember that the pumpkin cold foam has some sugar in it, too. You can use less of it, but you might not get as much pumpkin flavor as you want.

🥤 What are Starbucks' other fall menu items?

In addition to the Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai Latte, Starbucks has a couple other additions to their menu for 2023!

They are introducing an Iced Apple Crisp Oatmilk Shaken Espresso (yes, that's my copycat recipe for it!) and a Baked Apple Croissant.

Of course, they're bringing back their Pumpkin Spice Latte and Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew. The Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin is also returning.

☕️ More Starbucks fall drink copycat recipes

I love sharing Starbucks copycat recipes on my blog and have already created lots of their fall menu items and secret menu items, both hot and iced drinks. Here are some of my favorites:

You should also try my copycat Iced Apple Crisp Oatmilk Shaken Espresso.

And if you're not a fan of coffee or caffeine, try my copycat Caramel Apple Spice or my Iced Gingerbread Oatmilk Chai Latte.

For more pumpkin fun, give my friend Ashley's pumpkin podcast episode of Passing the Plate a listen!

I hope this Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai Tea Latte copycat recipe helps get you in the fall spirit! No matter what the weather is where you are, an iced pumpkin drink is always a great idea.

What fall drinks and treats are you most looking forward to?

📖 Recipe