Investigative Reporting: Why Starbucks Introduced the Pumpkin Spice Latte

Back in 2003, Starbucks introduced its first-ever pumpkin spice latte. While unknown at the time, this tasty twist would create the modern-day frenzy of ferociously feral and freakishly fanatical fangirls who post count-downs on their Instagram stories for the annual de-stemmed, sunset-colored, orange gourd coffee.

However, The Miami Student’s finest investigator, Jack “the Lantern” Doofenshmirtz, illuminates how Starbucks successfully carves out the wallets of thousands of caffeine-addicted men and women nationwide.

It all started in the fall of 2002, when “Big Bean” was at its peak and had the world of coffee all to itself. Yes, that weird silver thing in Chicago's Millennium Park can be held responsible for nearly all the world's production of this addictive legume.

Coffee, vanilla and cocoa beans were all that were known to main-stream sleepy-heads. Starbucks had been growing as a company and threatened to become one of Big Bean’s biggest dealers.

Dunkin’ Donuts, feeling a little “espressoed,” decided to brew up a few ideas to ice those Americanos before this problem became too grande. This proved to be a latte for them to handle. How could Dunkin’ really stop Starbucks’ expansion and infiltration of the “Big Bean” market? This is what Joe Trenta, a tall dark Joe who puts the TREN in Trenta, was assigned to figure out.

After a couple of weeks, Joe had a brew-lliant idea. The only way and the only solution to compete with Big Bean was to buy Starbucks. I don't mean he wanted to order coffee from Starbucks — he wanted to buy the actual company.

With Halloween just around the corner, Joe convinced Dunkin’s CFO — a former Frap Boy in college who had turned to yoga as a way to venti his frustrations — to send Starbucks a truckload of pumpkins. Along with the pumpkins came an offer to purchase Starbucks and a note that said: “It’s bean nice knowing you. Please take a look at our offer; it’s a gourd one.”

A week later, Starbucks responded with an official pumpkinless correspondence that stated “That was a gourd one, but we’ll be brewing up espresso just for you.”

That week, the Starbucks master of recipes accidentally spilled some of these pumpkins into a Starbies brew. Rather than removing it, however, he simply mixed it in and acted like nothing was amiss. After tasting his happy accident, he knew he had to replicate it.

The concoction was eventually released the following year in 2003 (can you believe there are people at this school younger than pumpkin spice?) and led to the beginning of the end for countless wallets and bank accounts.

In recent years, studies reveal a strong correlation between Swifties and monetary spending on pumpkin spice — so much so that the budgeting app Blank Space (Taylor’s Version) now has a category called "Starbucks Pumpkin Spice" that is separate from the regular "Starbucks."

In fact, this year Taylorology, a non-profit research group that specializes in Swifties, broke the news that pumpkin spice-flavored beverages have bean the second best selling items, topped only by Travis Kelce jerseys.

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Only one question remains: How long can the Pumpkin Spice Fandom last? But as long as Swifties can be feelin’ 22 by wearing a cardigan and drinking a hot, venti, double shot, almond-milk pumpkin spice latte, double sleeve, no cup with whipped cream, shaken (off) not stirred, it seems it’ll be able to remain a staple of “Big Bean” for years to come.

patteemj@miamioh.edu

pletchmh@miamioh.edu