It’s Too Soon for Pumpkin Spice. Or Is It?

If the mention of pumpkin spice in August makes you feel protective of the summer months, you’re not alone. But that hasn’t stopped brands from pushing PSL season earlier each year.

Photo by Katerina Shkribey on Unsplash

As many of you know, I’m the editor of a coffee publication called Fresh Cup. This topic both tickled my curiosity and felt appropriate to share with Fresh Cup’s readership, so we decided to crosspost this article. Please check out Fresh Cup for more industry insights and thoughtful approaches on how to make coffee better. 

The beginning of fall used to be signaled by a new crispness in the air—by earlier nights, colorful leaves, and farmers markets full of apples and gourds. But for many of us, those seasonal signifiers have since been replaced by a specific corporate promotion. Now, the start of fall is marked by the arrival of the pumpkin spice latte.

Starbucks introduced the PSL in 2003, and since then it has grown into a global phenomenon. The drink—which is made with baking spices like cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg, and, since 2015, actual pumpkin purée—was later adopted by numerous other coffee companies and retailers. (The spices used in the beverage all come from the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, and were traded at the same ports as coffee—but despite that historic link, the drink’s creation is down to R&D work at Starbucks rather than any long-standing lineage.)

Today, the PSL feels like an inescapable part of the season—but what happens when it shows up well before fall begins?

I found myself asking this question because this week, I got my first promotional email of the year about pumpkin spice lattes. Apparently, at 7-Eleven, PSL season has already started. On August 1, the global convenience store chain announced a new addition to its Slurpee menu: the Pumpkin Spice Slurpee (my fellow media colleague, Zac Cadwalader, bravely tried the drink and reviewed it for Sprudge). 

The company seems willing to skip the weeks of summer that still remain and dive straight into fall, debuting not just the new Slurpee flavor but a line of pumpkin-inspired coffee drinks as well. Meanwhile, various outlets are reporting that Starbucks is bringing back the PSL this year “earlier than ever.” 

All this hubbub begs the question: When is the right time to say goodbye to summer and welcome the pumpkin spice latte? We decided to ask the internet—and were surprised by the variety of answers:

Most respondents seemed to agree that right now—in August—is too soon for PSL season, but they had varying thoughts about when fall begins. (Those who follow the meteorological calendar say September 1, while those who follow the astronomical calendar go with the equinox.) Another group urged coffee businesses to think about the seasonality of pumpkins in their areas before considering slapping a PSL on the menu. But others wanted the party to rage all year, and called for the PSL’s seasonal confines to be removed. Let the people have pumpkin spice whenever they want!

Those who were irked about the PSL’s encroachment on summer do have a point—its arrival really is moving up sooner each year. Data from Google Trends shows that internet interest in pumpkin spice lattes is now peaking in August, and that the timeframe has shifted over the last few years.

Before 2019, interest generally peaked in September—but that year, the high-water mark was on August 25. In 2023, interest peaked on August 20. And in 2024, we’re already seeing search history data indicate that we’re in for an even earlier peak. (Search history trends don’t necessarily correlate with brands’ PSL releases, but they do indicate that the drink is creeping into people’s brains earlier and earlier each year.)  

So, when is the right time to begin talking about PSLs and other fall drinks? Will the timeframe keep moving up every year, or will brands eventually face a backlash for this seasonal creep? Presumably, there is an outer limit to PSL season, but we’re clearly not there yet. In the meantime, the premature takeover of fall drinks, cozy sweaters, and autumnal colors has arrived—even if it is still 90 degrees outside.