There’s good news for pumpkin-spice haters: the trend appears to finally, finally be starting its slow decline. Is there anywhere it can go but down, when places like McDonald’s hops on the bandwagon with offerings like pumpkin spice french fries?
But really. There’s actual, backing data that pumpkin spice is on the downward trend, and it comes from the hawks at Pinterest. According to their numbers, saved pins for pumpkin spice lattes are down 15 percent from last year. Anthony Bourdain will be overjoyed.
Don’t think this is the end of the bright orange drink era, though. Because taking its place, maybe, possibly, according to the data: the turmeric latte. As of September, people have been saving two times the pins for turmeric latte recipes.
Turmeric. Latte. Let that sink in. Turmeric is that orangey-yellow powder you’ve had lurking in the back of your spice cupboard since the last time you tried to make curry. It stains everything. It tastes like earth. And it’s set to become the next big drink flavoring.
The reason for this trend is much more about health than flavor. The Guardian speculates that the rise in the spice’s popularity is due to increased awareness of its health benefits – proponents believe it aids in everything from coughs and fevers to cancer. The market research firm Mintel named the root one of its foods to watch in 2016. Gwenyth Paltrow loves her some turmeric.
But…in a latte?
Actually, turmeric lattes aren’t what you think they are. For one thing, there is no coffee involved – just turmeric and milk, along with a few other flavoring spices and optional sweetener. They’re very similar to something called, haldi doodh (literally, turmeric milk), a south Asian drink women traditionally consume for the touted skin-lightening benefits. Haldi doodh recipes usually include turmeric powder, milk, and a dash of pepper, along with an optional addition of ghee, says the Guardian.
Turmeric lattes, then, are a slightly more spiced-up version of haldi doodh. And of course I couldn’t write an article about the trend without trying it myself.
The recipe I chose had me simmer grated turmeric, cinnamon, and ginger with coconut milk, and finish it off with coconut oil and honey. (There was also black pepper in there, but the recipe failed to mention when to add it, so I just sort of grated it on top at the end.) The hardest part of the entire ordeal was grating the turmeric and ginger up using foreign tools from my in-laws’ kitchen – I was visiting home for a long weekend. As an aside, if you’ve never tried cooking in someone else’s kitchen, it’s an ordeal. Nothing is right. The knives are not sharp and things are not where you expect them to be.
Once I finally got everything arranged in a nice mise en place, my turmeric latte came together in no time, simmering up into a yellowy concoction with droplets of non-foamed coconut oil beading on top. (I didn’t really have a great way to foam the coconut milk. Perhaps if I had had access to the immersion blender in my home kitchen.) I strained it into a mug, stirred in a spoonful of honey, and took a sip.
It tasted…earthy. Like turmeric. Which made perfect sense. I stirred in another squirt of honey, which definitely added to the flavor, but there was still something offputting about the drink. When I gave it to my mother-in-law to try, she nailed it: “It would make a nice broth for chicken.”
So there we were. Drinking spicy chicken broth in the kitchen. After another sip, the drink went into the fridge, “for tasting cold,” but, in reality, forgotten forever.
Is the turmeric latte set to overtake the pumpkin-spice latte? I wouldn’t bet my firstborn child on it, but I do see how it could become big with a bit of Starbucks magic (read: lots and lots of syrup). That is, if Starbucks cares enough to take notice. In the meantime, I’ll leave the health-food nuts and GOOP devotees to enjoy their turmeric lattes and juice cleanses in peace.
