Written by Jordan Michelman.
For lovers of specialty coffee, Verve Coffee Roasters is a household name. With 11 cafes across California—and 7 more in Japan—the Santa Cruz-based roaster was founded in 2007, and has carved out a distinctly West Coast perspective on third wave coffee. Today the brand has more than 100 employees, and they’ve done it all with La Marzocco espresso machines as a bedrock behind their bars.
Signature drinks are an important part of what they do at Verve, and in the fall, that means thinking about fall coffee, seasonal flavors, rituals, and expectations. Yes, I’m referring to the Pumpkin Spice Latte—a drink that’s been embraced and made considerably better through a specialty coffee lens. To learn more about how Verve thinks about signature drink development, the long shadow of the PSL, and seasonality, I sat down with Carrie Swain and Matthew Hartman, who help head up drink development on Team Verve.
Hi Carrie, hi Matthew. Please tell me a little more about your roles at Verve — how long have you been with the company, and what’s your background in coffee?
Carrie Swain: My name is Carrie, and I’m the Santa Cruz Regional Manager & Retail Ops Manager at Verve. This year marks my seven-year anniversary at Verve. I started working at Verve back in 2019 as a barista, then managed one of the stores here in town for a few years before moving into my current role. I don’t come from the coffee world originally, but rather the restaurant industry. I was a bar manager for many years and then a beer and wine buyer for a retail store back on the East Coast, where I grew up. When I moved out to California, I sought out the coffee world for a new challenge and a change of pace. The world of coffee has a lot of similarities to the beer and wine world, so it was fun to learn and develop my palate in a different way.
While part of my role at Verve is overseeing the cafes here in Santa Cruz, the other part is doing a lot of the behind-the-scenes work that helps our cafes stay humming along. That includes developing and sharing tools for our teams so that they remain informed about upcoming products and launches, but also the fun stuff, like helping to create signature beverages.
Matthew Hartman: I’ve been with Verve since October 2025 and currently serve as the Signature Beverage Lead. I focus on developing seasonal signature beverages and leading our Zero Proof program, creating drinks that blend specialty coffee with culinary-inspired ingredients and thoughtful hospitality.
I’ve spent the past several years working in specialty coffee in both barista and leadership roles, building a strong foundation in coffee while developing a passion for beverage innovation. What drew me to Verve was its commitment to quality from farm to street and the opportunity to create drinks that feel both approachable and unexpected, giving guests a unique way to experience coffee beyond the traditional menu.
At any given time, around how many signature drinks are running at Verve? And is it typically the same drinks at all your retail locations, or are some drinks only specifically featured at certain locations?
CS: The number of signature beverages that we usually have at any one time tends to vary depending on the time of the year. We stick roughly to a quarterly cycle, changing out sig bevs seasonally, with summer and winter being our two biggest seasons. We usually aim for about 4-5 drinks during those times, while the spring and fall collections will usually be much smaller.
There are also times when we team up with other folks to do really cool collaborations highlighting some of their ingredients. Those sig bev collections usually run a bit shorter than our seasonal collections, which makes them all the more exciting and limited. Earlier this year, we teamed up with Guisados down in LA to make an Iced Horchata Cappuccino using their horchata. We also partnered with Diaspora Spice Co. for Women’s History Month to make a mini collection of beverages using their Golden Milk spice blend.
A majority of the time, all of our drinks are available at all of our locations, but every once in a while we’ll make something that is only available in one region, or even one store. Last fall, some of the baristas at our West 3rd café pitched a Halloween collection of matcha and Thai tea lattes with ube cold foam. It was so fun and they did such a fantastic job on the creation, so we went ahead and did a limited signature beverage collection for just that café. Since then, we’ve done a few other employee-led, store-exclusive sig bevs and are excited to do more in the future.
MH: One thing I’d add is that our Zero Proof program is unique to Verve Mateo in the Arts District in Los Angeles. It was originally an idea that was put on hold during COVID, and I recently had the opportunity to bring it back as part of our signature beverage program.
The goal was to create a menu that feels just as thoughtful and elevated as our coffee offerings using specialty ingredients and cocktail-inspired techniques, ultimately giving guests a non-alcoholic experience that still feels intentional and celebratory. It’s been a fun way to expand what a coffee program can offer while staying true to Verve’s approach to quality and hospitality.
About how long does it take for y’all to develop a signature drink from start to finish?
CS: It depends on the drink! We like to always work about 4-5 months out, just to give us plenty of time to R&D our drinks and to also give our amazing marketing and art team time to get all of our beautiful supporting materials together. Sometimes we really need that extra time to tweak and play with recipes and make sure that our concepts can translate to a final product; other times, we know exactly what we want to make, and the recipe works on the first go. That is always a joy!
For example, a few months ago we wanted to make a signature beverage using our Grateful Dead Cosmic Ripple Flash Brew, and from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to make an Earl Grey syrup. We sourced some incredible Earl Grey tea from Rishi Tea and made a syrup with a tea concentrate and some orange blossom syrup to highlight the florality. It paired so perfectly with our Cosmic Ripple blend (which has tasting notes of starfruit, Meyer lemon, and tea) that during our very first tasting, we knew we had the recipe. We just added a little dusting of fresh nutmeg and a dried orange wheel, and the drink was complete!
MH: It really depends on the drink. Some ideas come together in a day or two, while others can take weeks of testing and refinement. A great example is the Verve N/Agroni. That drink went through multiple iterations because we make our own non-alcoholic bitter aperitivo from scratch using gentian root, which has a very assertive bitterness. Finding the right balance meant adjusting the recipe several times until the bitterness complemented the coffee instead of overpowering it.
The final drink combines Verve’s Flash Brew coffee, cascara tea, our house-made bitter aperitivo, a non-alcoholic amaro, and a tropical oleo saccharum, finished with an expressed orange peel. Like a traditional Negroni, it’s layered with bitterness, sweetness, and bright citrus, but it also tells the story of coffee by bringing together both the roasted bean and the fruit it comes from. Those are the kinds of details that can take time to get right, but they’re also what make developing signature beverages so rewarding.
In the fall, a lot of coffee drinkers associate that time with “pumpkin spice lattes” — and everyone who works in coffee has an opinion on this topic. How do you guys play with the PSL idea in the fall at Verve?
CS: Instead of leaning away from the pumpkin spice latte we decided to fully lean in. If the people want a PSL, let’s make a PSL, but let’s also make it the best one they’ve ever had and make it with a little Verve twist. Years ago, we really perfected our recipe: real roasted pumpkin, fresh spices, sweet but not too sweet. It’s served with a dusting of graham cracker crumbles for a little extra nibbly crunch. Since it’s made with real pumpkin, what you get is a warm, rich, and comforting seasonal drink that feels real and true to Verve. We always want to honor the philosophy of “coffee is for everyone.” We want our cafes to be places where our coffee purists can get a beautifully dialed shot of espresso or an incredible single-origin pourover, but we also want the folks who like sweet, creamy coffee treats to feel welcomed and know that they belong as well.
MH: We definitely don’t shy away from the pumpkin spice latte; we lean into it. It may not be my personal coffee order, but our goal is always to do right by the people who love it and make the best version we possibly can.
I think fall is one of the most exciting seasons for coffee. It’s a chance to work with warming spices, rich textures, and flavors that feel comforting and nostalgic. Whether someone comes in for our take on a classic PSL (our Pumpkin Pie Latte) or one of our seasonal signature drinks, we want it to capture that feeling of slowing down, warming up, and embracing everything people love about the season.
What goes into thinking about drinks for Verve in the fall? How are you able to think about signature drinks in a way that’s tethered to Verve, which is so closely connected to California?
CS: We’ve found that the recipe for success is to start with the classics and then look for a new way to present them. People tend to be nostalgic in the fall and winter. They are looking for comforting flavors and warm spices. We focus on fresh, high-quality, in-season ingredients, and then we look for a way to elevate them even more with a little surprise and delight twist. Maybe by incorporating an additional ingredient that you wouldn’t normally expect, or taking a classic drink and serving it in a new way.
I’m really excited for this fall in particular as we have some absolutely brilliant people working on creating some tasty delights. Matt has been creating beautiful sig bevs for the Zero Proof cocktail program down in LA at our Arts District location, and this fall he’ll be taking on the seasonal sig bevs for the rest of our cafés. I’m excited to see what he dreams up!
MH: I think this ties directly into the idea of making drinks that feel cozy, comforting, and a little nostalgic, while still being grounded in seasonality and what’s actually at its peak.
Being in California is a huge advantage for us, we have access to an incredible range of ingredients year-round, which allows us to think about fall in a more layered way than just traditional flavors. It’s less about being literal and more about capturing a feeling through seasonal produce, spices, and textures that resonate with the time of year.
For this upcoming fall, I’m especially excited to start exploring a few new ideas for the signature beverage menu. There’s a lot in development right now, so stay tuned.
Verve Coffee is based in Santa Cruz, California. Visit their official website to see a full list of locations and follow them on Instagram for more information.
