Many companies like Buzzfeed or retweetable accounts on Twitter spread the awareness of the seasonal drink, pumpkin spice latte. Many people hype it up, tweeting about how perfect the drink is for this season. But many others have contrasting opinions, tweeting about how trash the people who like pumpkin spice are or how trash pumpkin spice lattes are in general. With that in mind, I wondered about what was so special about pumpkin spice lattes. 

Why does pumpkin spice anything gets so much hype? Is it really that good? Is it only good because its a seasonal thing? What even is the spice?

I took to Starbucks to get my answers by trying the infamous pumpkin spice latte for the very first time. With many contrasting opinions, the reviews were on a seesaw, with many people loving the beverage, but many others having a sense of hatred. With my unbiased opinion and a clean palette, I sipped on the drink of fall.

With my first taste of the latte, I was met with burnt coffee. Was that the spice? The taste of burnt sugar, bean water? This completely caught me off guard and I lowered my standards drastically. After, I took more small sips that tasted like 7% pumpkin and 93% sugar.

Upon closer examination, I opened my lid and noticed a very light oil slick on top of my latte. When I used my drink stopper to play with the oil slick, I realized that the oil itself was squash orange, and the latte underneath was the color of coffee that had too much creamer.

After letting this fall beverage sit beside me on my desk, a film collected on the top of the drink. Thankfully, the film produced was festive. It was orange like fall. I proceeded to pick up my drink stopper once again to play with my beverage a little more. I discovered that this film could be lifted out of the drink, creating a mucusy substance that I placed on my lid for examination. I showed my peers around me this discovery, and they were also intrigued.

With the image of mucusy latte on my mind, I quickly lost my interest in the sweet drink of autumn weather.

After this experience, I came to the conclusion that pumpkin spice lattes do not deserve their hype.  With the taste of burnt coffee and orange films forming, the publicity for this fall drink is unnecessary.