The pumpkin spice latte has one fact that tends to surprise people who order it every October: the original version had no pumpkin in it. Starbucks began selling the drink in fall 2003, and it was built from espresso, steamed milk, sugar and a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove. Real pumpkin purée only arrived in August 2015.
That makes the drink a spice blend wearing a vegetable's name. Korean cafes have a fall latte that does it the other way around, and the vegetable is a sweet potato.
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| A goguma latte is a warm, milky drink built on blended sweet potato. |
It is called a goguma latte (고구마 라떼), and it is mostly a cold-weather drink. If pumpkin spice has run its course for you this year, this is a good alternative to know about, and it is easy to find or make.
What a Korean Sweet Potato Latte Actually Is
A Korean sweet potato latte is a warm or iced milk drink built on blended sweet potato, and it frequently has no coffee in it. The word latte on the menu does not guarantee espresso, so if you need caffeine, check before you order.
The drink also has a seasonal logic. Malay Mail points out that roasted sweet potatoes are sold as a winter snack in Korea, and cafes have turned the same tuber into a drink. In other words, the cup is a liquid version of something people already buy from a street cart when the weather turns cold.
Malay Mail, in an October 2026 piece, describes the traditional version as steamed sweet potato blended with milk or soy milk, naturally sweet and most popular in colder months. A recipe on My Korean Kitchen goes further: the drink, it says, "does not contain any trace of coffee." The Daily Meal calls it a popular choice in South Korea during cooler months and treats espresso as an optional add-in.
If you have to pick a North American reference point, it sits closer to hot chocolate than to a flat white. It is a milky, sweet cup that you drink for comfort, with an earthy note on top. The Daily Meal describes the flavor as earthy and sweet with a milky smoothness and a slight savory note.
How Korean Cafes Serve It
Korean cafes serve sweet potato in several forms, and the plain orange-fleshed latte is only one of them. The purple version is common enough to have its own name, and the dessert-style versions blur the line between drink and snack.
The Purple Version
My Korean Kitchen notes that many sweet potato lattes served in Korea use purple-fleshed sweet potatoes, called jasaek goguma (자색 고구마). The site says purple varieties were once rare in Korea but have become common. The result is a lavender drink, and Hypebae noted its violet gradient finish looks made for social media.
Starbucks Korea has run a Violet Roasted Sweet Potato Latte, made with purple sweet potato blended with milk and topped with whipped cream and a purple dust. A Hypebae article from September 2018 reported that it came hot or cold, was non-caffeinated, and was sold only in South Korea. It is unclear whether the chain still offers it, so treat it as a reported example and not a current menu item.
The Dessert Versions
At the other end of the menu sit sweet potato desserts served in a cup. In a November 2025 roundup, The Fact (a Korean news outlet) tried Ediya's Vanilla Ice Cream Sweet Potato, priced at 4,700 won: warm sweet potato topped with vanilla ice cream and cinnamon powder. The reporter said the taste was nothing special but liked the temperature contrast, and complained that the hot sweet potato melted the ice cream too fast.
The same roundup lists a sweet potato latte and a sweet potato smoothie at Paik's Coffee, though it gives no details. Taken together, these suggest cafes treat sweet potato as a seasonal flavor family and not a single recipe. That is a reading of a small sample, not a measured trend.
Making One at Home (Quick Guide)
My Korean Kitchen's recipe, published in 2018 and updated in 2019, is the simplest of the recipes reviewed. Roast halved sweet potatoes at 180 to 190°C (356 to 374°F) for about 30 to 50 minutes until a tester slides through, then scoop out 200 grams of flesh. The author prefers to keep the hardened layer near the skin, which she considers the best part.
Blend that flesh with 2 cups (500 ml) of milk, pour it into a pot with 1 tablespoon of raw sugar, and warm it over medium-low heat for about 5 minutes, whisking often. Top with frothed warm milk, cinnamon and crushed nuts if you like. That recipe serves two or three, and it has not been tested here.
Malay Mail's purple version skips the sugar entirely and steams the potatoes for 12 to 15 minutes instead, since the sweet potato already supplies sweetness. If you want coffee, the Daily Meal suggests a shot of espresso or about half a teaspoon of instant coffee granules.
Dairy is optional too. The Daily Meal says dairy or non-dairy milk both work, and Malay Mail's soy milk version blends soaked raw soybeans with the cooked sweet potato and strains the mixture, which the author says avoids the clumpy texture a simple blend can leave behind. The full recipe calls for 100 grams of dried soybeans, two medium purple sweet potatoes and 1.2 liters of water for roughly four cups, plus an overnight soak. That takes more effort, so it suits a weekend and not a weekday morning.
Choosing the Sweet Potato (Quick Guide)
The type of sweet potato matters more than most steps in the recipe. The Daily Meal recommends Korean sweet potatoes, the purple-skinned kind, or substitutes such as speckled purple or Covington. My Korean Kitchen recommends purple Hawaiian sweet potatoes but notes other varieties work and says the author used Beauregard in her original 2015 post.
For the cooking method, the Daily Meal lists microwaving, pressure cooking, steaming or roasting, and recommends roasting for the best flavor. It then has you mash the flesh, discard the peel, and blend with a sweetener such as brown sugar, maple syrup or honey for about 30 seconds until frothy. Serve it cold or warm.
How It Compares With Pumpkin Spice
Context helps here, because the pumpkin spice latte is everywhere. Starbucks tested the final recipe in late 2003 in Vancouver and Washington, D.C., and took it to every US location in 2004. Dunkin' followed with seasonal pumpkin drinks in 2007, and McDonald's in 2013.
The two drinks answer different questions. A pumpkin spice latte is a coffee drink flavored with spices: espresso, steamed milk, sugar and the cinnamon, nutmeg and clove blend, finished with whipped cream and pumpkin pie spice. A sweet potato latte is a vegetable drink flavored by the vegetable, usually with no spice base and often no coffee.
That difference shows up in what you taste. Pumpkin spice leads with warmth from the spices, and the pumpkin is nearly beside the point. A goguma latte leads with the sweet potato, so you taste the roasted, earthy sweetness first and any cinnamon second.
The two overlap in one place. Cinnamon is on top of both, whether it is the pie spice on a pumpkin latte or the dusting on an Ediya sweet potato or a My Korean Kitchen recipe. If you miss the spice, a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg on a goguma latte, the toppings the Daily Meal suggests, brings you close to fall.
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| Korean cafes serve sweet potato lattes in orange and purple versions, hot or iced. |
What Is Still Unconfirmed
A few things are worth saying plainly. No sales figures for sweet potato lattes in Korea turned up, so how popular they are cannot be judged beyond the descriptions in the sources above. No confirmed North American chain selling a Korean-style sweet potato latte turned up either, so most readers will be making it at home or finding it at a Korean cafe.
Nutrition is another gap. The sources do not give calorie or sugar numbers for cafe versions, and the amount of added sugar varies by recipe. If that matters to you, ask the cafe or skip the extra sugar when you make it yourself.
Texture is another variable. Because the drink is blended from cooked sweet potato, how thick it gets depends on how much milk you use, and a very thick cup is not for everyone. The amount of milk is the easy dial to adjust. Malay Mail's version adds no sugar at all, which is a useful reminder that much of the sweetness comes from the potato itself, so taste the blend before you add any.
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| A warm cup and a window seat suit a fall afternoon. |
North America's most famous fall drink spent its first twelve years without any pumpkin in it, while Korea's version of the season puts the vegetable in the name and in the cup. Order one warm if you find it, or make the roasted-potato version at home this weekend, and finish it with a little cinnamon on top, the one flavor the two drinks share.
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