Fall on campus presents beautiful scenery, brilliantly colored leaves, crisp air, that fall smell impossible to replicate, the opportunity to wear warm scarves and boots and cute cropped jackets.
Most importantly, fall is home to some of the greatest seasonal flavors, the best and most well known being the notorious pumpkin spice. Admittedly, it’s pretty hard to think about fall without thinking about the flavor of the season.
The pumpkin spice empire has expanded much farther than simple lattes from Starbucks. Now, you can buy a multitude of pumpkin spice-flavored items to satisfy your fall-flavored cravings.
At CVS in the College Park Shopping Center, look for the Pumpkin Cheesecake Pepperidge Farm Cookies. There’s also the Pumpkin Spice Dunkin Donuts coffee, available in bags for brewing at home. If you want a fall-themed food item but are tired of the pumpkin spice flavoring, CVS also sells some festive pumpkin shaped Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Head over to the Target Express and you can find ingredients for warm pumpkin spice Quaker oatmeal – perfect for cold fall mornings before class. Target also sells Pepperidge Farm’s Pumpkin Spice Swirl bread, which is another delicious way to add the flavor into any pumpkin spice lover’s breakfast.
Coldstone Creamery has even gotten into the fall-flavored madness. The ice cream store is selling pumpkin pie ice crea as well as a new salted caramel frappe and a twisted salted caramel ice cream.
Pumpkin spice didn’t necessarily make its way into stores quietly. The mass influx of fall-flavored food items is hard to miss. For some students, the addition of pumpkin spice flavored foods was not a welcome one.
“I think anything pumpkin related is really disgusting,” said sophomore kinesiology major Michelle Obijekwu. “It tastes bitter and spicy at the same time. Nothing should be pumpkin and everything should be caramel in fall.”
Sophomore community health major Imani Clayton also isn’t a fan of pumpkin spice.
“I don’t like pumpkins in general, so pumpkin spice isn’t my forte,” she said.
For others, pumpkin spice season has been a fabulous time of year.
“My absolute favorite pumpkin spice item is the muffins from the co-op,” junior biology major Mariah Criss said. “The smell and taste of pumpkin spice reminds me of Thanksgiving and my family. It’s comforting.”