Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte: 20 years of the seasonal autumn coffee drink people love, and sometimes hate
- As autumn approaches, Seattle-based coffee giant Starbucks unleashes its most popular seasonal drink, the Pumpkin Spice Latte
- Starbucks’ decision to sell it only in autumn was a stroke of marketing genius, exploiting the strong link between smell, memory and nostalgia
The seasonal drink that made pumpkin spice a star is turning 20. And unlike the autumn days it celebrates, there seems to be no chill in customer demand.
Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte goes on sale, as it does each year, near the end of August when the nights start getting longer and autumn begins.
It’s the coffee giant’s most popular seasonal drink, with hundreds of millions sold since its launch in 2003. And it has produced a huge – and growing – industry of imitators flecked with cinnamon, nutmeg and clove.
For better – and, some might say, for worse – the phenomenon has moved beyond coffee shops and groceries and into the larger world.
It’s part of getting into the season. It’s almost like a ritual, even if you’re just waiting in the drive-through.
It has also spawned a vocal group of detractors – and become an easy target for parodies. Comedian John Oliver once called Pumpkin Spice Lattes “the coffee that tastes like a candle”.
