Pumpkin Spice Latte

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About

Pumpkin Spice Latte is an espresso coffee drink made with a variety of traditional fall spice flavors (usually cinnamon, nutmeg and clove), pumpkin pie spice and steamed milk. Since its introduction by the American global coffeehouse chain Starbucks in 2003 as a seasonal special product for the last quarter of each year, the coffee drink and other pumpkin spice-flavored products have enjoyed commercial success for over a decade. Online, it is often mocked as a stereotypical drink consumed by "basic" white women.

Origin

Starbucks debuted the "Pumpkin Spice Latte"^[6] in October of 2004. The following month, Starbucks sales grew 11%, which CEO Jim Donald credited to the success of the new coffee drink.^[1]

"The very successful debut of Pumpkin Spice Latte, which has been enthusiastically received by our customers, is creating momentum as we head into the holiday season."

Spread

On August 4th, 2014 the "Pumpkin Spice Latte" Twitter^[5] feed was launched, which posts tweets written from the perspective of the coffee drink. Within two months, the feed gained over 93,500 followers. On August 8th, the "The Real PSL" Tumblr^[8] blog was launched, which highlights notable Pumpkin Spice Latte-related images. On August 25th, the food blog Food Babe^[7] published an article and infographic denouncing the ingredients used in the coffee drink.

On September 4th, BuzzFeed^[2] published a listicle titled "25 Things All Basic White Girls Do During The Fall," which included "Get on that Pumpkin Spice Latte grind" as #1 on the list.

On September 12th, the pop culture blog Flavorwire^[4] published an article highlighting tweets mocking white women for purchasing Pumpkin Spice Lattes (shown below).

On September 22nd, BuzzFeed^[3] published a photo log of an attempt to recreate the Starbucks drink for scratch, referring to it as "the sacred elixir of basic white girls everywhere." The same day, the BuzzFeed video YouTube channel uploaded a video in which a man reviews the Starbucks coffee drink (shown below).

Four Loko Hoax

On September 9th, 2014, the Facebook^[9] page for the alcoholic beverage Four Loko posted a photoshopped image of a Pumpkin Spice Four Loko can with the caption "If this was a thing."

Backlash

The popularity of the Pumpkin Spice Latte led to a backlash, with some detractors of the drink commenting on the flavor, ubiquity and overuse of the product. On October 12th, 2014, for example, John Oliver released a three-minute mock investigation into the flavor. The post (shown below) received more than 6.2 million views in four years.

However, some have dismissed the backlash as an example of subconscious sexism, which is aimed at products that are "coded as feminine."^[13] On October 30th, 2017, the website Taste published an article entitled "Women Aren't Ruining Food,"^[14] which argued against the backlash to Pumpkin Spice. Author Jaya Saxena writes:

"When those foods blow up, we judge women for falling for the marketing or trying to jump on the bandwagon, and we assume that because they like something other women like, they don’t have minds of their own. And on top of that, women are asked to reckon with, consciously or unconsciously, the perceived psycho-sexual symbolism attached to seemingly innocuous foods."

The backlash to the backlash eventually led to jokes about how some find the criticism over the drink an overreaction. On August 27th, 2018, Twitter ^[15] user @KylePlantEmoji tweeted, "'pumpkin spice refers to the spices used in pumpkin pie and doesn't actually taste like pumpkins' is the 'Frankenstein was the name of the doctor' of this decade." The tweet (shown below) received more than 1,000 retweets and 6,100 in four years.

Early Release

On August 26th, 2018, Business Insider^[16] reported that Starbucks was planning on selling the Pumpkin Spice Latte earlier than usual, launching the drink on August 28th. In their analysis, they cite a "strategy for boost sales" as well as a way to overcome PR issues the company sustained earlier in the year, when two black men were arrested for sitting in a Starbucks.

On August 28th, Starbucks^[17] tweeted, "Fall, is it really you? Pumpkin Spice Latte is back. #PSL" The tweet (shown below) received more than 8,600 retweets and 27,000 likes in 24 hours.