My First Pumpkin Spice Latte

I remember exactly where I was when I decided to break a rule. 

I grew up in a faith community that was all-encompassing. It was my first thought in the morning, part of every meal, and my last thought before bed. All my friends and family belonged to the same group. It was the framework I used to measure myself, others, and my trajectory in life. In short, the Mormon Church was behind everything that defined me. 

Despite this, around my mid-twenties, I knew that things were changing. And it terrified me. For years, I had felt out of step with my Mormon surroundings. At first, it was only by half a beat, but it had grown to become incredibly noticeable, like a dancer who hadn’t learned the choreography. This caused me great anxiety. After all, the church was incredibly important to my family, and I knew that leaving meant I’d never have the same relationship with them again. Sometimes my angst even manifested itself in a recurring nightmare that featured me hanging off various heights—a cliff, a building, a rollercoaster—with my sweaty fingers slipping and only one possible ending. 

I desperately searched for familiar beliefs that I could hold on to and say, “This! I still believe this!” One that I had always followed to the “T” was The Word of Wisdom. For the unfamiliar, this was a revelation from God given to Joseph Smith, the founder and first modern prophet of the Mormon Church, in 1833. It’s basically a code of health for believers. I’ll spare you all the details, but it says you should mostly eat fruits, vegetables, and grains. It adds that you should only eat meat sometimes. It specifically forbids any alcohol, tobacco, tea, and coffee.

In modern Mormonism, this is seen as a pretty clear litmus test of faithfulness. No one who’s drinking coffee can fully participate in services. No one who sips black tea will get to heaven. Pretty serious stuff. 

People at church consistently throw around reasons for the coffee ban. One white haired woman told a bunch of us ten-year-olds that it was because coffee contains tannins, which turn your stomach lining to leather. How do they know? Because when they made a submarine strong enough to reach the wreck of the Titanic, they found victims’ leathery stomachs all over the place, just bobbing around. While that’s not canon, we stared at her, wide-eyed, and vowed to never touch the stuff. And in those pre-Google years, who could blame us? 

But this time as I studied and thought about this code of health, (with Google at the ready) I found myself looking at it from a distance and with that came skepticism. I had non-Mormon friends who drank coffee and alcohol, and they seemed fine. I also knew plenty of Mormons who ate meat for nearly every meal and never touched a vegetable. And they seemed fine too. 

I spent most evenings thinking about this and every other belief I had. I picked up each one and turned it over, inspecting it from all angles. I wanted more than anything to find a reason to stay. 

I asked myself tough questions about my possible future, which might look very different from the one I had anticipated. Who was I without the church? Who was I without this community? Which relationships would I lose forever if I took this step? And one evening, as I pulled a hot loaf of pumpkin bread out of the oven, I realized for the first time that I was slipping out of the church and there was no putting it back the way it was. 

I was munching on the loaf when it came to me just like that. I decided to cross the Mormon version of the Rubicon: I was going to have a pumpkin spice latte. 

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I didn’t get a PSL right away. I wasn’t about to throw away twenty-eight years of perfect self-deprivation without a little bit of thought. 

If you looked at my search history after my commute the next day, you’d find delightfully earnest questions like, “How to order coffee?” “Is espresso coffee?” “What’s the difference between Tall and Grande?” and, my favorite, “Should I drink coffee near a bathroom?” 

A few days later, I set out from my house and walked to the nearest Starbucks, right across the street from Costco, a notorious Mormon hang (now you know). 

Once inside the belly of the beast, I gazed around at the products on the shelves and the bustling staff. I listened to the clicking of keyboards and conversation, overlayed by soft jazz. You would think this innocent scene would put me at ease, but when you’ve spent your life believing that this place is nearly as sinful as a brothel, even the most relaxing atmospheres can come across as nefarious. But I was on a mission, so I tried to do my best impression of someone who had done this before.

As I approached the register, the pink-haired twenty-something cashier—whose name tag said Steph—barely looked up at me as she asked for my order. I said, “I’d like a small pumpkin spice latte” before stopping myself and turning red. I had blown my cover. I had even practiced saying, “I’ll have a tall pumpkin spice latte, please” in the mirror that morning, but I forgot. Steph looked up at me for the first time and nudged me along. “A tall?” she said. 

“Yes, I’m sorry,” I practically sputtered at the floor, “I’ve never ordered coffee before!” It just came out of my mouth. Now I’d done it. Would I have to unpack my faith crisis to this girl who was looking at me with what I hoped was amusement? 

She simply asked, “Hot or iced?” God bless Steph. 

Despite a rocky start, I successfully ordered my iced latte and nervously waited for it to be made. I had no concept of how long I’d be waiting so I jiggled my leg and tried to act bored. 

A few minutes later the barista yelled out, “Kevin!” Which was me. I knew better than to give my real name.

I jumped up, heart racing, grabbed the plastic cup and ran out of there, causing much more of a scene than I meant to, I’m sure. Thinking back, I’d love to get my hands on the security footage for that day, watch it once, then destroy all copies. 

I went around behind the Starbucks to a dog park that was nearly always deserted. I sat down carefully on a bench and inspected the 12 oz. cup in my hands. It seemed safe enough. There was a thick layer of cream at the top that I was excited about. I’ve always loved marshmallows in my hot chocolate, after all. And hot chocolate was the closest thing I had in my experience to make sense of what I was about to consume. The rest of it looked creamy and delicious. My heavy heartbeats continued, but this time from excitement. Maybe hell wouldn’t be so bad, I thought, if it even existed. 

I raised the cup to my lips. I took a sip. 

If someone was standing in the window of a nearby apartment tower, looking down, they’d see a short Mormon kid in a black coat and hat sitting rigidly on a bench and staring, bug-eyed, at a cup of Starbucks held out in front of him. I sat frozen in the silence for a moment, tasting, thinking, and basking in the fact that no heavenly lightning had struck me down, and the earth hadn’t opened up and swallowed me whole.

After taking one more swig just to be definitively sure, I concluded that it was absolutely disgusting. And I didn’t hide my revulsion, either. If God was real and watching me right now, I wanted to cover all my bases by letting him know that I agreed, and that this concoction wasn’t meant for humans to consume. It was bitter, heavy, and left a horrible lingering musk in my mouth. 

I jumped up and threw the nearly full cup in the nearest trash can. 

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As I walked home from my first pumpkin spice latte experience, I thought hard about what I had done. At the time, I made up my mind that I simply didn’t like coffee, and not because of my stomach lining or God or any other reason. I had first-hand knowledge now, instead of someone else's word. Today, though, I’m happy to report that I love coffee in nearly all its forms, including spiced lattes.  

But that day, as I walked the familiar path home, I felt relaxed and light on my feet. I sifted through my mind and heart for any sign of guilt or shame, and I didn’t find any. I was most surprised by that.

What I did find was freedom. And curiosity. And a world stretching out in front of me. And while I lost some friendships due to my decision, I also discovered that most of my friends were going through similar rule-breaking experiences at the same time: going to brunch on the Sabbath, wearing tank tops, or drinking other seasonal coffee beverages. We were all falling out of the church in parallel, but it took years to connect and realize we were on the same path, each silently going through it. They became my new community. 

I learned that hanging onto my childhood religion felt a lot like my nightmare of hanging off the ledge of a highway overpass, about to plunge to my death as my white-knuckled fingers slipped an inch. But what actually happened was this: when my fingers came free and I fell through the air, I just landed on solid ground about a foot below where I had been. With a coffee in my hand. 

When I reached my home, I had only one thought on my mind: I’m ready to have so many more firsts.