Pumpkin spice wasn’t always so nice.

The iconic pumpkin-spiced latte from Starbucks that went on to create a whole pumpkin spice industry almost didn’t make the cut.

In 2003, the coffee giant set out to create a fall-inspired drink that featured flavors that were comfortable and warm. 6

“We started to brainstorm different ideas that would resonate in the fall seasonal time period. We came up with hundreds of ideas,” Peter Dukes, the “father” of the PSL , told People .

He shared that there “were chocolate beverages and caramel beverages” in the mix — but pumpkin-flavored items weren’t popular at the time.

“[We] quickly whittled down to 10 concepts that we wanted to bring forward to our customers with some paper concepts,” he said.

For each of the 10 concepts, they had in-de

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