As the weather progressively gets colder and the leaves that have already changed colors begin to fall, the festive mood of autumn can be felt. Naturally, this means companies begin to oversupply us with anything that could possibly be related to fall and the holidays. One item that seems to be gaining an increasing amount of popularity is pumpkin, specifically pumpkin spice.
Ever since Starbucks came out with their pumpkin spice latte, also known as PSL, it has received an enormous amount of hype; especially, by the YouTube beauty community. It was an item in every beauty vlogger’s favorites videos at least once. It became the drink of the season and for some people it’s not fall unless Starbucks has started serving PSL. There is even an iced variety of the drink. Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s are trying to catch up with this trend and are offering pumpkin spice lattes as well. Now there’s a pumpkin spice version of almost any food item you would want ranging from candy to beer.
It’s interesting the same phenomenon isn’t occurring with apples. Apples are a fruit harvested in the fall as well. Starbucks does offer a caramel apple spice, but that’s essentially apple juice and cinnamon with caramel and whipped cream on top. I only found out about it by Googling it. I’m aware that apple cider is also popular now, and I have tried apple cider doughnuts. However, I haven’t seen much else. This might have something to do with the fact there are so many different varieties of apples and it’s available almost year-round. However, pumpkins can only be harvested in the fall, and that gives them this quality of being limited. So, this causes an increased demand for them.
I’m from New York City, and I have never tasted anything pumpkin flavored until this semester. It tastes exactly like a food item that represents fall might taste, and this pleasantly surprised me. I’ve had chocolate with pumpkin filling, pumpkin doughnuts and pumpkin bread, and I can’t help but feel I’m succumbing to the hype. I don’t particularly mind.
