Today is the big day! It is the season opener of “Pumpkin Eatin’ Season 2009.” Can you feel the excitement in the air . . . wait, that’s not excitement; that’s ash. The sky over Los Angeles is ugly and dirty with a temperature of exceedingly HOT. However, I did leave the office for a quick lunch and walked over to Starbucks. Today is the first day of the seasonal pumpkin latte and the pumpkin frappacino. They are also now stocking the mediocre trio of bakery items: pumpkin cream cheese muffin, the pumpkin scone, and pumpkin loaf. I did order a tall pumpkin spice latté with soy milk. It tastes exactly as mediocre as I remember. Hopefully the 2009 season will bring more exciting pumpkin treats rather than the same old stuff.

To commemorate the kick off of “Pumpkin Eatin’ Season 2009″ I’ve got a first ever Pumpkin Passion’s giveaway. From my blog stats, 90% of you probably found my blog while looking for the Pure Simplicity Pumpkin Mask. While it seems to have been discontinued–it’s a crying shame!– you can still occasionally find it for sale on eBay. I have 1 container left over from my last eBay purchase and I’m offering it to one lucky blog reader. To win it, simply leave a comment telling me about me your favorite pumpkin item. The winner will be chosen at random unless there’s a really interesting favorite pumpkin item related comment and then I’ll just choose the winner. You have until September 14, 2009, at midnight PST to leave your comment. Be sure to leave me an email address where you can be contacted. Sorry to any international readers but this is for those in the continental U.S. only. Good Luck!

Name: Pumpkin Spice Latte
Purchased At: Starbucks
Price: $4.25 (grande)
Availability: Seasonal

How awesomely amazing is that picture?!?! You didn’t think I was going to say “How awesomely amazing is Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latte” did you? Uh Oh! If you did you may not like this review. I’ve procrastinated this blog post for WAY too long and now that I’m not in the mood to rave over the pumpkin treats I found over the weekend, I guess I’ll get this over with:

Starbucks has a Pumpkin Spice Latte yeah, they do. Hmm, I don’t have much to say about it. I think it’s alright. The taste is a little funky and the color is a strange yellow/orangey color. When they bring back the PSL in September I purchase a couple and enjoy them but soon go back to my regular soy latte. I’m not 100% sure that my dissatisfaction with the drink is due to the sticky sweetness of it or that I like my lattes unsweetened.

I know that this blog will be heresy to some. I have friends (Hi Alli!) who go completely gaga over this stuff and, according to the “Starbucks Gossip” blog, was partially responsible for an 11% increase in sales a few years back but I’m just not thrilled with it. There’s definitely a pumpkin flavor to it but the taste is just indescribably off. The Chicago Tribune was also not overly happy with the flavor, giving it a “C” rating in their pumpkin spice coffee tasting.

So to those of you that enjoy it, keep on loving it! I’ll just make my own pumpkin spice by sprinkling a good amount of cinnamon and nutmeg on top of a regular latte.

Rating: 2 out of 5

Something I can get enthused about is DBTabasco’s “Pumpkin Latte Art” photoset over at Flickr. Through his generous usage of a creative commons license is how I got the photo featured above. Check it out.