Pumpkin Spice Latte

The Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte is a coffee drink made with a mix of traditional fall spice flavors (cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove), steamed milk, and espresso and is topped with whipped cream and pumpkin pie spice. The drink is offered by Starbucks on a seasonal basis, usually being introduced on the first of September—though in 2014 the drink was introduced earlier on August 25—and usually, depending on the store, will end sometime around the end of December.

History

Starbucks started developing the Pumpkin Spice Latte in January 2003 after the company noticed the success of other winter seasonal drinks such as the Peppermint Mocha and Eggnog Latte and wanted to expand their seasonal reach into the fall. According to Peter Dukes, Starbucks' director of espresso Americas, developers went through a large brainstorming process in which they came up with ten products to test with consumers. Peter Dukes was also the man who led the development of Pumpkin Spice Lattes. The overall response from the ten experimental beverages came back with the Pumpkin Spice Latte somewhere in the middle of the spectrum behind ideas including chocolate and caramel flavors. However, as Peter Dukes notes, "developers realized there was something special around the pumpkin flavor, especially since there wasn't anything around pumpkin at the time". The company started experimenting with many different combinations and ratios of pumpkin to spice, ultimately deciding on a recipe with more spice in it.

Pumpkin

A pumpkin is a cultivar of a squash plant, most commonly of Cucurbita pepo, that is round, with smooth, slightly ribbed skin, and deep yellow to orange coloration. The thick shell contains the seeds and pulp. Some exceptionally large cultivars of squash with similar appearance have also been derived from Cucurbita maxima. Specific cultivars of winter squash derived from other species, including C. argyrosperma, and C. moschata, are also sometimes called "pumpkin". In New Zealand and Australian English, the term pumpkin generally refers to the broader category called winter squash elsewhere.

Pumpkins, like other squash, are native to North America. Pumpkins are widely grown for commercial use, and are used both in food and recreation. Pumpkin pie, for instance, is a traditional part of Thanksgiving meals in Canada and the United States, although commercially canned pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie fillings are usually made from different kinds of winter squash than the pumpkins frequently carved as jack-o'-lanterns for decoration around Halloween.

Spice

A spice is a seed, fruit, root, bark, berry, bud or vegetable substance primarily used for flavoring, coloring or preserving food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are parts of leafy green plants used for flavoring or as a garnish. Many spices have antimicrobial properties. This may explain why spices are more commonly used in warmer climates, which have more infectious disease, and why the use of spices is prominent in meat, which is particularly susceptible to spoiling. A spice may have other uses, including medicinal, religious ritual, cosmetics or perfume production, or as a vegetable.

History

Early history

The spice trade developed throughout South Asia and Middle East in around 2000 BCE with cinnamon and pepper, and in East Asia with herbs and pepper. The Egyptians used herbs for embalming and their demand for exotic herbs helped stimulate world trade. The word spice comes from the Old French word espice, which became epice, and which came from the Latin root spec, the noun referring to "appearance, sort, kind": species has the same root. By 1000 BCE, medical systems based upon herbs could be found in China, Korea, and India. Early uses were connected with magic, medicine, religion, tradition, and preservation.