So now that it’s Labor Day in the US, two things are certain: Christmas decorations will be up by Tuesday and Starbucks will start serving their Pumpkin Spiced Latte. But the drink wasn’t considered a hit right away. It took some odd experiments to get it right:

To get the taste right, Starbucks developers a decade ago decked out their R&D lab with a ton of Thanksgiving flair, even though it was only spring. There were sweaters, Thanksgiving decorations, and, of course, a bunch of pumpkin pies – made from a variety of family recipes, and some store-bought. They nibbled and taste-tested their way through the pies, swigging the pumpkin filling down with espresso. They even poured espresso directly onto the pie,

via Boing Boing