PSL Powers the Namaste

r ≈ 83% positive

US Pumpkin Spice Product Sales vs US Yoga Practitioners

Pumpkin spice sales and yoga practitioners grew in lockstep. Every latte is a sun salutation waiting to happen. Basic is the new enlightenment.

“The enlightenment pathway begins at the Starbucks counter and ends in Warrior II. PSL is the eighth chakra.”

— Guru Latte Asana, Suburban Mystic

A correlation, not a conclusion

What you are looking at is the trajectory of US Pumpkin Spice Product Sales set against US Yoga Practitioners. Over the years where both series exist, they happen to move in lockstep tightly enough to produce r ≈ 83% (positive). That number sounds impressive. It is also entirely meaningless without a hypothesis.

Two unrelated trends can correlate strongly when they share an underlying driver — economic growth, technology adoption, demographic change — or when the dataset is small enough for noise to look like a signal. The only thing this chart proves is that "correlation does not imply causation" remains the most-ignored sentence in science.

Treat it as a meme with a citation. Source data is from public, reputable datasets; the implied story is not.

This correlation belongs on a wall, a mug, or a t-shirt. Pick your poison:

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