Greggs has brought back the pumpkin-spice latte in time for autumn
(Picture: Greggs)Greggs has brought the pumpkin-spice latte back already – and August isn’t even over yet.
The reappearance of the PSL at high-street coffee shops is symbolic of the ushering in of the autumn months.
It means the weather’s about to get colder and the streets are about to be coated with red, yellow, and orange leaves.
So bringing the autumnal drink back before August bank holiday seems a little premature. But is it really?
Trees have already begun shedding their leaves due to this summer’s heatwave, sparking a “false autumn”, while many people woke up to dark, thundery skies this morning.
Therefore, Greggs releasing its pumpkin spice early on August 25 seems appropriate.
A Greggs spokesperson said: “Although we’re still enjoying the last of the summer heat, we know how much our customers enjoy a pumpkin-spice latte, no matter what the temperature.
“We hope the early return of this favourite will be a delight to Greggs fans nationwide.”
Starbucks is waiting a little longer to bring back its PSL – but only a little longer.
The American coffee-shop chain will bring back the fan-favourite at the start of meteorological autumn, which is September 1.
Many other coffee-shop franchises have also jumped on the autumn hype with their own versions of the drink, including Pret a Manger and McDonald’s.
But true PSL fans will know that the drink originated at Starbucks.
In 2003, following the success of its seasonal peppermint mocha and eggnog latte, Starbucks decided to come up with a drink for autumn, too.
According to The Daily Meal, Peter Dukes, Starbucks’ director of espresso Americas, said: “We realised there was something special around the pumpkin flavour [we developed], especially since there wasn’t anything around pumpkin at the time.
“So they took that and ran with it, testing out a variety of pumpkin-inspired flavours and mixing them with espresso. This meant setting up a ‘liquid lab’ filled with Thanksgiving paraphernalia, complete with pumpkin pies, in the middle of January, just to get into the fall spirit.”
He said: “Anyone who is particular about their own pumpkin-pie recipes knows there are a lot of pumpkin-pie recipes. We started to experiment with high-pumpkin, low-spice, low-pumpkin, high-spice combinations, ultimately landing on a recipe with more spice in it."
Although the final recipe doesn’t include any pumpkin in it, Starbucks named the autumn drink the pumpkin spice latte — and the rest is history.
