Pumpkin spice returns
This year marks the twelfth year the Pumpkin Spice Latte has been sold at Starbucks.
According to “Peter Dukes Shavres the Story Behind Starbucks First Pumpkin Spice Latte” published on news.starbucks.com on Aug. 25, 2014, the brainstorming for the future best-seller began in early 2003 when the Starbucks research team was looking for an autumnal drink to follow their other successes with holiday drinks, like the peppermint mocha and eggnogg latte.
However, originally, the pumpkin spice latte was not a frontrunner in the testing. No one thought of it as anything too special, according to an article entitled “Pumpkin Spice Latte, the Drink That Almost Wasn’t” on blogs.wsj.com.
It fell somewhere in the middle behind chocolate caramel and cinnamon spice.
Reflecting on the process, Starbucks’ espresso brand manager, Peter Dukes, told The Wall Street Journal in late 2013 that “It wasn’t the natural winner, but there was something there.”
Vancouver and Washington, DC stores were the first to test the new concoction in fall 2003, and it was an instant hit.
The rest, as they say, is history.
“I really liked the pumpkin in it. I could taste the pumpkin and enjoyed it,” Natali Edgerton (11), who just recently hopped on the bandwagon and tried the drink for the first time said.
Now that it has become such a staple of fall, people everywhere enjoy this seasonal drink as the leaves change colors.
