By Yushan Fu,
Staff Writer.
With Halloween and Thanksgiving just around the corner, fall flavors like pumpkin spice, maple and caramel apple are getting more attention from consumers and corporations. Cafés are releasing seasonal drinks like the pumpkin spice latte or pumpkin spice flavored desserts like cupcakes and cookies. They are essentially putting pumpkin spice into basically anything they can.
However, do these flavors actually taste good? Some say they’re amazing, while others say they’re just too sweet and the flavors taste artificial. When asked what she thought about fall flavors, art teacher Justine Mendoza said, “I do think fall flavors like pumpkin spice are overrated.” Her response shows how some people don’t get the hype on fall flavors like pumpkin spice even though they get hyped up every year. Pumpkin spice is so popular, but when you taste it there’s barely any pumpkin. It’s mostly cinnamon and other spices.
One of the main reasons people buy fall flavors is because they only come once a year. Companies advertise them everywhere, then people see them on social media and want to try them because everybody else is. Suddenly everybody is drinking a pumpkin spice latte and it becomes a trend. Nowadays people consume excess material because of trends; if it’s a trend, people feel the need to try it even if they don’t like cinnamon or pumpkin. If pumpkin spice wasn’t a huge fall trend, not nearly as many people would go out of their way to buy it.
Maple and caramel apple are also pretty overrated. Maple can be way too sweet and caramel apple often just tastes just like caramel without any apple flavor or cheap apple alternatives. Maple and caramel apples can be excellent, but putting them on everything can be too much.
Fall flavors aren’t inherently horrible, and some are still edible. However, these flavors get way more attention than they deserve. Every year companies act like pumpkin spice coming back is the biggest, most important thing ever. But in reality, they just use the opportunity to hype up the product so that they earn more money. Maybe fall flavors aren’t really that special, but we just like the feeling of fall.
