Starbucks Pumpkin Spice

The coffee for this critique is Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice light roast. Something to be aware of is the suggested preparation of this coffee on the package. With the suggested preparation, this coffee should be “reminiscent” of Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latte. Without going into details, I will say they suggest more cream and sugar than I care to use. This said, I approached the tasting of this coffee same as previous critiques, pour-over brew, no cream, no sugar; a second cup with sugar.

When I opened the package and sniffed, the scent was light and organic. I sniffed it a few times thinking it had hints of something close to cinnamon and nutmeg, but it wasn’t boldly recognizable. When I poured hot water over it, the scent came to life and my desire for tasting it grew. My first cup reminded me of an organic tea. My experience with light roasts has given me the impression of thin coffee flavor: less coffee, more organic, not tea, just tea texture. With sips, I could recognize the cinnamon, like licking it off my finger without any sugar. After adding sugar, the flavor of the coffee didn’t jump out. I could still taste the light roast, but now the coffee had a stronger back-end flavor (aftertaste). The back flavor of the coffee was now recognizable as pumpkin pie, like a retail pumpkin pie, not fresh baked.

My further research led me to brew a pot of this coffee with a drip coffee maker. I then tried it with sweetener and afterward had a second cup with 6 teaspoons of sugar. The spice flavor of the coffee overpowered the sweetener and was bland with the flat taste of the spices more pronounced. With the amount of sugar, I used the desired flavor was achieved.

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