Heads Up! This Coffee Shop Has a Vegan Pumpkin Spice Latte on the Menu

Heads Up! This Coffee Shop Has a Vegan Pumpkin Spice Latte on the Menu

  • Sarah Von Alt
  • Sarah Von Alt
Pumpkin spice season is officially back, and with it the beloved pumpkin spice latte (aka PSL). Unfortunately, the popular Starbucks version contains dairy, and while you could make your own, let’s be real—many of us would rather stop by a coffee shop and leave that to the professionals.

And vegans are in luck! Peet’s Coffee is essentially a vegan haven, especially when it comes to our favorite seasonal drink.

Choose between Peet’s pumpkin latte or dark chocolate pumpkin mocha made with soy or almond milk. And if coffee isn’t really your thing, you can always give the pumpkin chai latte a shot. To top it all off, Peet’s offers vegan whipped cream! I mean, what more could you want?

These drool-worthy pumpkin drinks are around only for a limited time, so try them while you can! And some stores also sell vegan baked goods like muffins, scones, and bagels, so you can grab a bite to eat while you’re there too.

Don’t live near a Peet’s? Panera Bread is another café that offers this famed seasonal drink—and with real pumpkin! Just be sure to ask for soy milk and skip the salted caramel sauce.

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Whether it’s out of concern for one’s health, the environment, or animal welfare, it seems that everyone nowadays is switching to plant-based milk. In fact, the market for plant-based milk is expected to reach $16.3 billion globally by 2018. This is up from $7.4 billion in 2010.

While dairy has proved detrimental to human health and contributes to environmental degradation on a massive scale, possibly the most important reason so many people are moving away from it is that dairy is unimaginably cruel.

At dairy factory farms, cows are roughly handled, forcibly impregnated, and kept in terrible conditions. Their calves are torn away from them shortly after birth. Male calves are killed for veal. Females are raised to produce more milk, trapped in a cycle of abuse for years until they are considered “spent” and sent to slaughter.

Fortunately, delicious dairy-free alternatives abound! Click here for 17 of our favorites.