JOURNEY OF THE PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE

THE AMERICAN-BORN DRINK IS CREATING A CULTURAL DIVIDE IN EUROPE

- STORY: JEANNA SMIALEK / NYT

A customer with her pumpkin spice latte at a cafe in Antwerp.

As soon as autumn weather arrives, customers at Have A Roll bakeries in Belgium begin to ask the baristas: Is it pumpkin spice latte season yet?

“It’s getting more popular every year,” said Dennis Van Peel, the chain’s owner, who puts the drink on the menu at his cafes in Antwerp, Belgium, Brussels and other cities starting in October. He has begun to serve the beverage by request even earlier.

But, he admits, “either you love it or you hate it.”

Since pumpkin spice lattes were first added to Starbucks’ American menus in 2003, they have become an autumn mainstay in the United States, where versions are regularly sold in smaller independent coffee shops. Inspired by the success of the latte, pumpkin spice coffee creamers, candles, lip glosses and even hummus begin to pop up in stores starting from late summer, long before the first leaves turn color and the summer sun fades.

Yet in Europe, the birthplace of the espresso, where coffee culture stretches back nearly a half-millennium and American culinary creations are viewed with frequent suspicion and occasional contempt, the flavoured lattes are divisive.

“In Brussels, you can find some coffee shops that are against it — it is too much of a trend,’ said Thomas Wyngaard, the founder of OK Coffee, which organises coffee tours through Brussels.