Turns out there is real pumpkin in your Starbucks pumpkin spice latte but there probably shouldn’t be. So in 2003, the head of espresso innovation at Starbucks was searching for the next big hit drink. Rumor has it, took a bite of pumpkin pie, washed it down with a latte, and said, great Scott, we’ve done it. Fast forward 12 years later and 200 million pumpkin spice lattes sold, enter Vani Hari, AKA the Food Babe, AKA an absolute pseudoscientific hack. She comes out with a blog post saying, Starbucks, you have to disclose what’s in your drink. There’s no real pumpkin, is there? But there was never supposed to be. The pumpkin in pumpkin spice latte literally functions as an adjective. That means it’s ginger, cinnamon, clove, allspice, the spices that go well with pumpkin. That’s like complaining there is no real Nashville in your Nashville hot chicken. But Starbucks got so freaked out by this negative press that there’s no vegetables in their coffee that they actually took a little shart of pumpkin. They just went , that’s why there’s a weird greasy orange layer on top of it. In summation, I got a mouthful of pumpkin. You’re telling me a pumpkin spiced this latte.