I, like many, love the fall season. There’s nothing quite like sweater weather and a warm drink. Many go for the seasonal pumpkin spice flavor, but I think it is completely overrated. If you’re a Pumpkin Spice lover, I just might be able to help you find your new favorite finds!
Pumpkin spice, which is simply a mix of four spices, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, and sugar, has been around for many years, featured as the main spice in the classic Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. The turning point for it though, was really when Starbucks released its Pumpkin Spice Latte, lovingly known by fans as the “PSL” in 2003.
Many began to love the seasonal flavor, and the market for pumpkin spice-flavored foods and scented household items began to skyrocket.
Yes, some pumpkin spice goods are tasty, and I enjoy them, but I think that there are too many products centered around this seasonal flavor, which creates some unbacked hype.
You can find pumpkin-spiced products about anywhere you go, from your Starbucks lattes to grocery stores to fast food, gas stations, and even Staples! Yes, you can even find your pumpkin spice kick while school shopping.
When you go to a grocery store during the fall, there is an abundance of pumpkin-spice-flavored goods everywhere you turn.
Pumpkin spice-flavored food, including coffee, Twinkies, baking mixes, bread, coffee syrups, protein mixes, Pop-Tarts, Pretzel Crisps, bagels – even Dude Wipes have a pumpkin scent. It feels like when I walk down an aisle in the grocery store during fall that there are at least 3-4 pumpkin spice products.
Now that may not seem like very many, but you must think of all the different companies making these products.
I have noticed many reviews note that the products do not have the pumpkin spice taste as expected. Many companies produce so many pumpkin spice products but do not give them the correct flavor profiles! Why keep buying these products if we keep being dissapointed?
When you pull into a drive-thru, there’s also almost a guarantee that they will have a Pumpkin Spice product.
Every year I find myself in a scenario explaining to people why I do not want pumpkin-flavored coffee and why I think that these products are overrated. There are too many products for a “seasonal” flavor that doesn’t deliver the flavor profile people can expect every time.
All in all, I believe that there are just way too many pumpkin spice products, and many big brands see the fall as the time to shove as many pumpkin spice products as possible on the shelves to compete and make as much seasonal cash as humanly possible.
