There was a time I thought I could really be in love with you, but now you’ve gone too far. Each fall, your appearance in Starbucks’ ordinary white cups is a welcome one – more sophisticated than the obnoxious holiday cups that come out swinging around Thanksgiving. While I’d never call myself a fan of your mermaid-mother’s stores, ever since the beginning of my coffee-purchasing days, your cinnamon peppered blend has been a fall tradition in which I’ll always partake at least, oh three or four times during the season.
But this year, you’ve landed on my streets and in hands well before the curtain call, and it’s a bit ridiculous. You’ve gotten ridiculous. It really started a few years earlier, when your slight and pleasant sweetness adopted a gritty syrup taste, like I was rubbing grains of sugar straight into my incisors. Then, you started acting less like a pumpkin, subtle and tasteful, and more like the futuristic, manufactured version of a pumpkin, conceived in a board room. You became contrived; you sold out. Why did you have to change like that? Have you forgotten about your long roots? Your ancestors didn’t need any of that whipped cream fluff or sprinkles to get Cinderella to her ball, to fool Linus into writing letters to your great dynastic name.
And now, here you are, showing your face around these parts just one day after Labor Day, when there’s a good three weeks left to our summer. Three weeks left to enjoy our Tazo Tea blends to the fullest, before you steal the seasonal drink spotlight, poisoning the teeth of your followers and planting false notions of pumpkins in the young minds of first-timers.
To be completely honest, I’ll probably sip on your flavors this season, if only for nostalgia’s sake. But I doubt I’ll be able to enjoy you very much. Your sugar and spice was nice while it lasted. But I’ve found someone else to take your place, and let it be said, they know that a real woman like me needs the real orange thing.
