Too Spicy?

August 31, 2023

Yet again, social media has rekindled The Great Pumpkin Spice Debate.

To those of you who argue that we shouldn't drag in a season before its time, who decry Pumpkin Spice's annual re-emergence in August, in coffee and everything coffee-adjacent: I hear you. I'm a child of summer, myself; I love it so much that every September I wish I could escape with it into the Southern Hemisphere and not return until April. So I empathize.

I also understand how so many of you can't wait for fall—for blessed release from the grip of heat and humidity, for corn mazes and sweaters and Halloween. You defend, equally passionately as Pumpkin Spice's detractors, the stores that have already stocked their entryways with cinnamon pine cones and their shelves with candy corn. I hear you, too.

Social media algorithms keep poking me to take a side in this tug-of-war, which of course makes me want to refuse even as I appreciate an effective marketing campaign. So as long as no one gets in the way of me squeezing every drop of joy out of summer 2023, I'll call myself a Pumpkin Spice Agnostic and sip to my heart's content. After all, the world can always use a little more yum, even if we'd all do better with a little less spice.

—Deb