Pumpkin Spice: The Famous Flavor For All Things Fall

When you think of Autumn, what comes to mind? Most likely, you thought of pumpkin spice. Pumpkin spice has existed since the 1930s when Thompson & Taylor Spice Co. and McCormick & Company put out pumpkin pie spice. It consisted of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, and cloves. But some people consider the start when something entirely different was invented: the pumpkin spice latte (PSL).

The PSL was a game-changer. It first debuted in only 100 Starbucks stores in Vancouver, Canada, and Washington D.C. in 2003. In the first week of it being out, Peter Dukes, the creator, called store managers to ask how the new drink was doing and “could hear the excitement in their voices” said Dukes. By 2010, all sorts of pumpkin spice-themed products were hitting the shelves. In 2012, Starbucks even had a PSL shortage at some locations. This year alone, around 20 million pumpkin spice lattes will be sold. There are many reasons why the PSL was and is so successful, one of them being that when we taste and smell pumpkin spice, we are reminded of calm, warm memories like the change of seasons, holidays, and the beauty of autumn. Nowadays, we have a huge variety of pumpkin spice items to choose from. Some good pumpkin spice ideas, in my opinion, are pumpkin spice Oreos, pumpkin spice hot chocolate, pumpkin spice cookies, and pumpkin spice whipped cream. Some bad ideas in my opinion are pumpkin spice trash bags and pumpkin spice spam.

We owe Starbucks for the explosion of the warm earthy flavor that we know as pumpkin spice, the uniform flavor for fall.