Bring Your Own Pumpkin (or better yet, don't).

Fall: the season that people who actually enjoy actual coffee dread. Every Starbucks in the land is crammed ass-to-elbow with pumpkin-chasers, sucking down those liquid pies like Tommy Lasorda in a Slim Fast commercial. It comes earlier and earlier, too. This year Starbucks rolled it out in some locations in mid-freaking-August. Why not, right? It’s a completely phony “event” anyway.

(Don’t get us started on the sad spectacle of seasonal limited-time fast food bullshit. They could sell you that McRib or those Chicken Fries any time they want to. Don’t play their game, people! Every time you tweet about them, civilization dies a little bit!)

And of course every other coffeeshop has to make their own vain attempt to sate the gourd-crazed hordes. You can’t get a decent cup of java without elbowing your way through a mob of candle-scented amateurs.

All we can do is huddle indoors with our Saeco Talea Giro Plus and wait out the onslaught. It grinds, brews, steams, and froths like the pros do. It’ll never try to upsell you some stale biscotti or make you listen to Sarah McLachlan. And if you insist on befouling the noble coffee with rancid fake pumpkin flavor, you’ll have to pour that nasty syrup yourself. Yes, the pumpkin-free Saeco Talea Giro Plus “serves you right” in more ways than one.