8 Things You Never Knew About the PSL, Straight From Starbucks
It's hard to imagine a Fall season without the Pumpkin Spice Latte. While nearly every coffee shop offers its own version of an Autumn-inspired latte each season, we can all thank the original creator for dreaming up the quintessential beverage and coining the term PSL: Starbucks. And no matter how much you might try to deny it, you know you love walking outside on a chilly Fall day with a Pumpkin Spice Latte in hand. Curious to know more about the famous seasonal espresso drink? These fun facts might surprise even the most dedicated Starbucks fans.
It wasn't always called the Pumpkin Spice Latte.
One of the original name ideas for the latte was Fall Harvest Latte. The reason it became the PSL is that was the abbreviation baristas would write on the cups.
It's all thanks to a man named Peter Dukes.
Back in 2003, Peter Dukes was the director of espresso Americas for Starbucks — amazing job title, right? — and he served as the product manager who led to the development of the Pumpkin Spice Latte. "Nobody knew back then what it would grow to be," Peter said in a Starbucks release. "It's taken on a life of its own."
The recipe was unchanged for 11 years . . . until last year.
Starbucks made a change to its original recipe last year — for a good reason! The company removed artificial caramel coloring and replaced it with real pumpkin, so all your PSLs from now on will taste even more authentic. Plus, this year is the first year Starbucks started carrying almond milk, so the latte is more customizable than ever.
It's been shared on social media hundreds of thousands of times.
In each year alone, Starbucks reports there's an average of more than 3,000 #PSL tweets per day, and the hashtag has more than 460,000 results on Instagram.
Since it rolled out nationwide in the Fall of 2004, it has been ordered more than 200 million times.
Raise your hand if you have personally contributed to this statistic. *Raises hand.*
The first cities to carry it were Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and Washington DC.
While still in the process of testing in the Fall of 2003, Starbucks brought the latte to 100 stores in Vancouver and Washington DC to get a feel for how it would sell — obviously it went over well.
It's available in almost 50 countries.
Your country isn't the only one that gets to freak out as soon as the beverage is available. According to Starbucks, the "Pumpkin Spice Latte is now available in nearly 50 countries throughout the Americas and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) regions."
There's an official PSL Instagram account run by Starbucks.
Called The Real PSL, naturally.