Welcome to day 20 of Tag Sale Tastes’ Pumpkinpalooza!

Two-thirds of the way through September, I finally felt ready to enter a Starbucks and order a Pumpkin Spice Latte (“PSL”).

The Starbucks PSL is made with espresso, milk, pumpkin spice flavored sauce, whipped cream, Starbucks vanilla syrup, and pumpkin spice topping of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.

The guy that took my order was quite patient as I went through my usual routine of trying to figure what the different sizes were.  I gave up, as I always do, and ordered a “small,” which in Starbucks parlance is “tall.”  And black is white and day is night.  I quit going to Starbucks a while back because I every time I’d go there I felt like there was glitch in the matrix.

Here is the barista concentrating intently on the precise formula for my PSL:

My PSL arrived with a spiffy fall-themed belt around its special fall-themed cup:

It had a cute little pouf of whipped cream and pumpkin spice on top:

The whipped cream quickly dissolved into the orange-colored hot beverage:

This in-store PSL was NOTHING like the Starbucks Via Instant Pumpkin Spice Latte, which was so awful that I discarded the unopened packets.  The drink was a little too sweet for me, but other than that it was pleasant.  There was a mild pumpkin flavor, and I appreciated the real spices on top of the whipped cream, which added a nice flavor and aroma.  I can’t say I’d ever crave a PSL, but I can see how those who can afford the 300+ calories and the time to stand in line, and who aren’t afraid to call a small a tall, would look forward to this drink’s arrival each fall.

Rating:  4 pumpkins (out of 5)