In their attempts to rival Special K when it comes to random flavor assortments, Kellogg’s presumably thought, “Wait, we don’t have a seasonal pumpkin spice flavor of Frosted Mini-Wheats? Fire someone!”
Then, they hired someone new and released a seasonal pumpkin spice flavor.
Pumpkin Spice seems like a pretty natural fit for Mini-Wheats. While it seems like you can fast track your corporate cereal rise by suggesting “Why not make a pumpkin flavor?”, it won’t work for everything. Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Pumpkins, Pumpkin Spice Trix, Pumpkin Loops? Not so much.
But Pumpkin Spice makes sense for Mini-Wheats, even aesthetically – the box is very nice.
My one complaint about the box is I hate that “Xg of Protein” thing they’re sticking on the boxes lately. Four grams of protein indicates they expect you to use half a cup of milk. This means one of two things : you are eating a “serving size” of the cereal, or you are judicious with your milk usage. Both of these options indicate cereal failure.
I’m not saying you have to drown your cereal – you might be taking a Life cereal approach, where you cut back slightly to avoid the two-minutes-in-mush conundrum. But Mini-Wheats require the right amount of milk. Too much milk, and you’ve got bloated, mushy bales of wheat. Too little, and the Mini-Wheat sponges soak up all the milk, leaving you with this awkward, half-moistened cereal.
At that point, you may as well go dry. Dry for cereal is acceptable for handheld cereal eating, though it is certainly not the ideal method. But dry works very well with Mini-Wheats, so long as you’re okay with a scuffed-up mouth by the end.
Anyway… it’s a good, fall-themed box.
What was somewhat surprising was the shade of orange they went with for the frosting. I was expecting more of a tan frosting, but they went almost straight up Halloween Oreo orange colored. The pictures, like all the pictures I use, are terrible and don’t do the orange hue justice. This is legit artificial dye territory. I’m kind of impressed.
The garish orange coloring gave be a bit of a scare when it came to eating the cereal. If they went that route with the colors, I didn’t expect much subtlety in the taste category.
To my surprise, the Pumpkin Spice levels are… perfect, actually. This is honestly one of the most well-balanced pumpkin spice-flavored foods I’ve had in a long time. It’s no more sweet than the usual Frosted Mini-Wheats, and the pumpkin spice flavors are more there to sing harmonies, not lead.
I’m sort of sorry about that metaphor, as it’s a bit pretentious when talking about cereal, but it is accurate.
This is one of the rare seasonal pumpkin spice foods I will be re-buying.
[insert seal of approval here]
Diet Coke-Babies 