How Well Do You Know Your Pumpkin Spiced Lattes?

Nothing tastes more like autumn than the pumpkin spice latte...

Some people's favourite thing about Halloween is the unnecessarily decadent parties; for some it's an excuse to binge watch terrible slasher flicks; others, the potential to go into your overdraft making sure your costume is as pristinely authentic as possible. Then, there's those who find themselves drawn to their high street coffee chain of choice in search of that succulently sweet seasonal speciality, the pumpkin spiced latte. You love it or hate it. Marmite, but spooky.

The likelihood is you associate the PSL with Starbucks, and as much as I'd love to offer a conspiracy theory rabbithole about how it originates through a Siberian gang warfare love story, much of it is owed to the coffee giants.

America has for decades loved sharing their non-pumpkiny coffee with very pumpkiny pumpkin pie, so similarly to peanut butter and jelly (jam, for our massive UK readership), it was simple arithmetic of adding one to another.

pumpkin + coffee = DELICIOUS

The PSL's arithmetic began in the early 00s. Back in the halcyon days it was a fringe concept, a novelty offered by strange specialist coffee shops that applied that delicious spice to espresso, until Starbucks marketing team wanted to replicate the success of their 2002 peppermint mocha autumn product. Product Manager Peter Dukes was tasked with replicating such success.

In 2003, Dukes and his team got to work on the Starbucks "Liquid Lab" and came up with 20 viable novelty latte flavours for autumn. The majority of crowd-tested designs were chocolate and caramel-flavoured, but when they narrowed the prospect down to four, interesting the pumpkin spiced latte came out on top due to its originality, its eye-catching individuality, which was marked by its popularity from survey data.

The Liquid Lab involved these very, very serious and in no way just there for the free food, scientists eating pumpkin pie with espresso, and they centred on the two components of the spice, and the pumpkin (I know, it surprised me too). After finding a balance between the best pumpkin and spice levels, they added pumpkin sauce instead of syrup as it's heavier, as to replicate the texture of pumpkin pie. They named it the pumpkin spiced latte, with connotations of warmth and cosiness against the bitter winter weather outside the Starbucks chain.

It was sold at first in 100 stores in Canada and America, and it was an instant success, with store managers phoning Dukes to gush their excitement. It was sold internationally in 2004, and its popularity has snowballed since, now standing as Starbucks's best-selling seasonal drink, and every coffee and commercial food chain effectively has their own recipe for it.

And there you have it; the PSL.

The PSL: Tastes like halloween in a cup!