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.v
in the U.S. and Canada, as it does each year when the nights start getting longer and the fall winds gather. It’s the coffee giant’s most popular seasonal beverage, 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.
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." There's a Facebook group called "I Hate Pumpkin Spice" and T-shirts with slogans like "Ain't no pumpkin spice in my mug."said sales of its pumpkin spice drinks — including newer offerings like Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew — were up 17% in the July-September period.
These days, Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte has its own handle on X — formerly known as Twitter — with 82,000 followers, and a Facebook fan group called the Leaf Rakers Society with 43,000 members. And it has fans like Jon McBrine, who drinks black iced coffee for most of the year but eagerly awaits the latte's return each fall.
"It’s part of getting into the season," he says. "It’s almost like a ritual, even if you’re just waiting in the drive-thru."Jason Fischer, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University who studies human perception through sight, sound and smell, says odor and flavor have a more direct route than other senses to the area of the brain that processes memories.
"Odors and sights go with certain places, like the aroma of pine and the crunching of needles beneath your feet," he says. "They’re associated with a certain kind of experience. And then marketing taps into that, and it’s a cue for a product."
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